Redondo Expands Permit-Only Parking Area

The Redondo Beach City Council ordered permit parking on eight more streets near South Bay Hospital as residents of the area continued to complain that commuters have taken over parking spaces in their neighborhoods.

Under the council resolution, which is aimed at employees and construction workers at the hospital, residents will be given the exclusive right to park on their streets and nonresidents who park there will be cited.

Public Works Director Ken Montgomery said it will take about a month to issue the permits, post warning signs and start enforcing the parking restrictions.

At Thursday night’s special meeting, the council also decided to start a curbside recycling program, and budgeted funds to convert the Lilienthal right of way to a park.

In an effort to resolve residents’ parking complaints, the council added to the restricted parking zone the streets on the east side of the 400 block and the west side of the 600 block of North Prospect Avenue; the 1200, 1300 and 1400 blocks of Diamond Street, and the 400, 500 and 600 blocks of Paulina Avenue.

They were added to the 500 block of North Prospect, where the hospital is located and which the council on June 20 designated for residents-only parking.

The hospital, which is building a parking ramp and a medical office building, has said that it is doing everything it can to alleviate parking congestion in the area during construction.

A hospital spokeswoman said construction workers and the hospital’s 400 employees have been urged to leave their cars at the Sheraton Hotel parking lot near the waterfront and take a shuttle bus provided by the hospital.

Warnings Ignored

However, the hospital’s plea and council warnings have been ignored by many commuters, said city officials.

“An overwhelming number of residents on these streets have indicated that they want the preferential parking zone expanded,� Montgomery said. “They know that the non-residents will keep moving out until it is too far for them to walk to the hospital from any place they can find to park.�

The hospital began construction on a 395-space parking structure and a 46,000-square-foot medical office building early this year. Hospital officials said the parking structure should be completed in October.

The curbside recycling program would be a local response to concerns that the Los Angeles area is running out of places to bury its waste, the council said.

Before the program is launched next year, the city staff will study a similar plan used in the city in the early 1980s that failed to gain much participation. It will also review current programs that are apparently succeeding in Santa Monica and other cities.

Recycling programs typically ask residents to place materials that can be recycled, such as aluminum cans, glass and newspapers, in separate containers at the curb for weekly pickups. The council authorized a $1 monthly surcharge on property tax bills to cover costs of the program.

Council members said Redondo Beach should learn from its earlier failure, which they blamed on such factors as inadequate promotion, lack of suitable containers and public resentment against scavengers who hauled off the most salable materials.

The council pleased open-space advocates by allocating $200,000 in the next fiscal year’s budget for Lilienthal park. The 1.5-acre strip, acquired as a street right of way, starts from the end of Anza Avenue, just north of 190th Street. Construction on the park is expected to begin in the summer of 1990 and take about three months to complete, officials said.