County plans to add new parking restrictions in certain areas

Housing crisis appears to have led to a parking shortage

After years of enduring a regional housing crisis that has led to a severe lack of available street parking in the North Fair Oaks area, residents may finally see some relief. But it could come at a cost.

In recent years, residents of the unincorporated San Mateo County neighborhood have flooded the county’s public works department with complaints that they are forced to park multiple blocks away from their homes.

Along some streets in North Fair Oaks — primarily near the commercial corridor on Middlefield Road — the streets are so packed that some residents resort to parking in front of driveways and even fire hydrants, according to county staff.

So to address the area’s parking woes, San Mateo County has proposed a pilot program that calls for residents to pay $75 for a county permit in order to park on certain streets in the neighborhood.

David Stahler, who has been living in the neighborhood for two years and supports the program, said he was forced to widen his driveway to accommodate his family’s cars.

“We can’t park in front of our own house unless you have a parking frenzy where as soon as someone moves, you move and there’s this great leapfrogging that has to happen every evening,” Stahler told the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors at a recent meeting.

Jim Porter, San Mateo County Director of Public Works, said the region’s housing crisis, which has led to multiple families cramming into single-family homes and more granny flats being built on properties, has exacerbated the area’s parking problems.

“The streets and community simply don’t have the capacity to house all those extra cars,” Porter said in an interview. “And this is a situation that’s going to continue to grow because there’s a lot of additional housing being constructed on the Peninsula but there’s not a lot of additional parking.”

While the county’s board of supervisors has seemed supportive of the pilot program, the $75 fee became a major sticking point.

North Fair Oaks is an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, located between Redwood City, Atherton and Menlo Park. Nearly 73 percent of its 15,000 or so residents are Latino and many of them are also low income.

Supervisor Warren Slocum, who represents North Fair Oaks, said he was concerned about how adding another fee to the already high cost of living in the Bay Area could affect residents.

“If we’re talking about the North Fair Oaks area, $75 might not seem like a lot of money to you or I, but when you lump that in with bridge toll increases and sewer rate increases and everything else that we’re faced with, it just seems like a lot of money,” Slocum said

during a recent board of supervisors meeting.

Everardo Rodriguez, chair of the North Fair Oaks Community Council, holds similar reservations.

Due to a lack of sidewalks and bike lanes on most streets in North Fair Oaks, Rodriguez said many residents are forced to use cars to get to their destinations.

“Trying to implement an officially designated parking area is going to be difficult,” Rodriguez said in an interview. “If you are like many of the residents in North Fair Oaks who are regular working class and sometimes

working two jobs to pay rent, that (the $75 fee) might not be attractive.”

As part of the county’s proposed pilot program, residents will have the opportunity to petition to have their street or a group of streets to participate. Depending on what time of day is most difficult for residents to find parking, permits could either apply during the daytime — from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays — or at nighttime — from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day of the week.

Residents will not be required to obtain a permit if they typically park in their driveway, but they will be cited if they park on the street without one.

Many cities across San Mateo County offer parking

permit programs, but the costs and hours of operation vary.

In the cities of San Mateo and Redwood City, for instance, residential parking permits apply during daytime hours and are currently offered to residents for free. In Burlingame, residential daytime parking permits will cost $57 starting in January. And in Menlo Park, the city offers overnight residential parking permits, which cost residents $150 a year.

The board of supervisors has instructed county staff to continue to refine the proposed pilot program and consider offering it for free or at a lower cost. The pilot program will come back to the supervisors for approval later this summer.