East San Rafael residents pan parking plan, call for permit program

A plan designed to ease the parking crunch in eastern San Rafael neighborhoods is getting a thumbs-down from some residents who say the scheme misses the mark.

The city is proposing a series of projects to increase the parking capacity in the Canal area with up to 90 new all-day parking spaces and more than 300 weekend and overnight spaces.

City officials are targeting the area of Windward Way south of Bellam Boulevard. The goal, city officials say, is to relieve the Spinnaker Point and Baypoint neighborhoods that are packed with cars.

However, Spinnaker Point resident Richard Peterson said the proposed site for the new parking is too far removed from where the real problem is concentrated on Spinnaker Point Drive.

“The irony of this situation is that we asked the city for their help in providing parking places,” Peterson said. “Not only have they not helped, but they made it worse.”

For years, residents of the Spinnaker Point area have complained that there is spillover from the Canal neighborhood, creating a parking shortage.

In 2017, the city hired a consultant, W-Trans, on a $45,000 contract to study the parking issues in those neighborhoods and recommend ways to improve them. The consultant found that the area had a deficit of 580 parking spaces, with roughly 2,300 on-street spaces for about 2,880 cars.

The city shortened the on-street parking limit from 72 to 24 hours and began towing vehicles that were parked in violation of the time limit. City staff installed hundreds of signs throughout the area describing parking limitations and, on some streets, painted lines next to curbs to mark out parking spaces.

Additionally, the city is working on a $1 million project to realign the sidewalk on Spinnaker Point Drive near the Albert J. Boro Community Center to accommodate approximately 16 new parking stalls. Construction started on that project in October and is expected to be completed in early 2023.

However, residents complain that problem has persisted, and these few additions are not enough.

Last year, the city established a committee to come up with solutions, which were presented to the community at a meeting this fall.

Rafat Raie, the city’s deputy public works director, said those discussions resulted in a list of nine measures that the city plans to implement over the next six to 12 months.

First, officials are considering improving Windward Way with lighting and capacity for about 65 new parking spaces.

Additionally, city officials are looking for parking lots to offer residents overnight secured paid parking. One possible site is the Marin Health and Wellness Campus on Kerner Boulevard, a move that would require a partnership with the county.

Officials will also consider adding more parking on city-owned land; removing the four-hour parking restrictions in business areas on weekends; and making walking, biking and street lighting improvements throughout the Canal area. Other proposals include adding pavement markers delineating parking stalls and ramping up parking enforcement.

Ross Bishop, the Spinnaker Point parking committee chair, said city officials are showing a willingness to help, but what the community really wants is a parking permit program.

“If we could reserve 25% to 35% of the spots for the residents, that would leave a lot of space available to the public,” Bishop said. “To us, that’s a reasonable form of sharing.”

April Miller, director of public works, said that after working with the committee and consultants, officials determined that the city would first look at increasing the parking capacity over the next year before considering parking permits.

“Parking permits raise issues such as the most equitable use of public space, where displaced vehicles will relocate, the costs of enforcement, and other issues,” Miller said.

“We recognize that there has been frustration for some residents in the community,” Mayor Kate Colin said.

With regard to the proposed parking permit program, Colin said “it’s important to build the overall parking capacity, otherwise there is no place for those other cars to go.”

“Increasing the capacity is a necessary precursor to further explore a permit program, which the city is willing to do if other options are not working the way we want them,” she said. “The city is taking this seriously.”

More information on the parking project and other improvements in the Canal neighborhood is available at cityofsanrafael.org/canal-neighborhood-improvements/.