Westwood merchants hope for parking remedy
By Sharifah Williams
Dec. 7, 2003 9:00 p.m.
Leaders in the Westwood community are trying to organize a
system to improve parking in Westwood Village and increase the
area’s dwindling consumerism.
Shoppers are constantly driving around the streets of the
Village, searching for metered parking near shops of their
choice.
The only public parking structure in Westwood Village is
available on Broxton Avenue, but it charges higher rates than the
metered parking rates. Off-street parking costs $2.50 per hour more
than metered parking.
One potential solution that has been proposed and debated is
raising the meter prices.
UCLA professor Donald Shoup came up with the idea, proposing
that raising meter prices would make shoppers more willing to use
off-street parking.
The money collected from the public parking lot would then be
used to pay private lots to allow shoppers 90 free minutes of
parking.
Alan Willis, principal transportation engineer for the Los
Angeles Department of Transportation, also said prices on the
meters should be raised to solve the parking problem.
Some members of the Westwood community say they do not want the
city to increase the meter rates, believing there are better ways
to make parking more convenient for shoppers.
It does not make sense to increase the price of street parking
to force people into parking lots they cannot afford to pay for,
said Jay Handal, president of the West Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce.
“There has to be an overall parking strategy in Westwood,
not a Band-Aid strategy,” he said.
Some merchants agree, and say raising the prices might drive
consumers away.
“We already have high meter rates compared to the rest of
the city,” said Jeffrey Abell, owner of Sarah Leonard Fine
Jewelers.
Abell has made proposals to Los Angeles city councilman Jack
Weiss’ office with his own ideas for improving the parking
situation.
Abell believes a more plausible solution to the parking problem
is to provide more public parking to customers. These public lots
would provide two hours of free parking with validation from
merchants, he said.
Abell’s plan includes the creation of a new Business
Improvement District in Westwood, an organization created for the
purpose of improving business in Westwood and making the area more
consumer friendly.
Westwood’s earlier BID dissolved in 2002 after issues
concerning mismanagement arose. A new BID has yet to be
organized.
Abell said if a new BID were organized, it could create a system
of validation that would be fair to the owners of private lots and
cheaper for merchants, he said.
Approximately 20 to 30 percent of the merchants in Westwood
validate parking.
Many merchants do not participate in the validation system
because it is costly, said Philip Gabriel, owner of Scrubs
Unlimited.
Merchants must pay for the stickers used to validate parking
tickets.
Some merchants will only validate if customers meet their
minimum purchase requirement, he said.
Gabriel is working on his own solution for the parking
problem.
His proposal would give customers two hours of free parking
without validation in structures. In return, the overall rates
would rise by $1 or $2 after the initial two hours.
Many members of the Westwood community believe Weiss should
organize an improved parking strategy for the Village.
Handal believes Westwood needs a “global parking
situation” that would be inclusive of the 14 private parking
lots in the Village.
The “global parking situation” would bring public
and private parking lots in Westwood Village together with a fixed
rate for parking, he said.
Abell believes Weiss should bring the owners and operators of
Westwood’s public and private lots together for a roundtable
discussion. There, they would work together to organize a parking
strategy for Westwood, he said.
“I have called for (Weiss) to take full leadership … but
there has been no progress,” Handal said.
Other community members say they have had similar experiences
with the councilman’s office.
“I think there’s been a communication gap between
what the councilman’s office is doing and what we want to
have done,” Gabriel said.
Though the debate on parking solutions continues, Abell, Gabriel
and Handal all say Weiss is not working with the community or
establishing leadership in Westwood.
Weiss’ office did not respond to several phone calls made
last week.
“I implore Councilman Weiss to pull together that
roundtable because the economic viability of Westwood depends on
parking,” Handal said.
