Parking permit program for Southgate residents approved

PALO ALTO >> Residents fed up with Palo Alto High School students, staff and visitors parking on neighborhood streets soon will get some relief.

The Palo Alto City Council has approved a new parking permit program that will prioritize parking for residents who live in the Southgate neighborhood next to the school.

Mayor Greg Scharff and Councilman Adrian Fine were absent.

Like other Residential Preferential Parking programs throughout the city, the Southgate program will limit non-resident parking in the neighborhood to two hours on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Each Southgate household will get one annual permit sticker for free and be allowed to buy up to three annual permit stickers for $50 each. Residents also could buy up to two transferrable hangtags and up to 50 one-day hangtags every year that could be used by the household’s guests, for instance.

The two small businesses located in Southgate boundaries will be able to buy a limited number of transferable one-day or six-month permit hangtags.

The Southgate permit program will start as a one-year pilot this October.

The program applies to the area within Churchill Avenue, the Caltrain Rail Corridor, Sequoia Avenue and El Camino Real.

Southgate residents Jim McFall and Keith Ferrell told council members that the parking program is especially important because of the neighborhood’s narrow streets. When vehicles are parked on both sides, a road essentially becomes one-way.

Ferrell said he has had from $3,000 to $4,000 in damage from sideswipes over the years.

Phillip Kamhi, a transportation programs manager for the city, has said the city worked with Paly to establish a parking system that gives preference to students who live farther from the school and encourages those closer to use alternative transportation, such as walking or biking.

A parking occupancy survey conducted by the city confirmed neighbors’ hunches that the high school impacts neighborhood parking, Chief Transportation Official Joshuah Mello said Monday.

Contact Jacqueline Lee at 650-391-1334.