Business Owners Give Their Take on City's Special Parking Zones

The City Council on Aug. 24 approved a resolution that is intended to streamline the process for people who request special parking zones throughout the city. That action followed a nearly yearlong process in which several businesses requested restricted parking zones in front of their stores and had to wait for a response from the city while their applications were being reviewed.

The process resulted in the city deciding to increase the fees for these types of applications because of all the work involved in reviewing the requests. This means people who want to make a request to change a parking zone may now have to pay up to $3,700 just to file the application. Fortunately for the businesses whose applications were already being reviewed, those rules didn't apply to them.

The following are interviews with two of the businesses that requested changes for the parking zones in which we asked about their experiences going through the process.

Barry Gevertz, owner, Lullaby Lane

Lullaby Lane's warehouse on San Mateo Avenue is located on the northern part of the street, which is mostly an industrial corridor. That means the warehouse is surrounding by a number of auto repair shops, and street parking is usually full on both sides of the street during the day.

Barry Gevertz, owner of Lullaby Lane, said he never realized before that he could request a yellow zone in front the building. But now that the request has been approved, Gevertz said, it will make things a lot better for trucks that have to get in and out of the warehouse to transport merchandise. "This way, we can operate our business without being a nuisance to people driving down the road," he said. "And being able to control where our trucks go is basically a slam dunk."

Gevertz said he was satisfied with the city's process to approve his store's request to get a special parking zone. Although it took nearly a year, he attributes the success of his request to the City Council whom, he said, followed through to make sure the process was expedited in a timely manner. "With a new mayor and a new regime, it seems like things are happening," he said. "And I'm kind of excited about that."

Owner, Crest Dry Cleaners

The owner of Crest Dry Cleaners, who didn't want her name used for this story, filed a request for a special parking zone in front of her business a year ago as well. But the process wasn't as easy for her.

At first, she asked for the city to change the on-street parking space in front of the store to a 15-minute green zone. When that didn't fly, she requested a 30-minute zone. That didn't fly either, so she asked for a one-hour parking zone. After the last denial, she said, she was ready to quit the process because she couldn't get a straight answer from the city.

Then she contacted Stephan Marshall, a realtor who sold the owner her building and who had previous experience dealing with the city because of his work on the city's Parks and Recreation Commission.

Too busy to go forward with the process after a yearlong wait for an answer, the owner asked Marshall to assist her with getting the request approved. So he represented the dry cleaners before the city and finally got them a two-hour parking zone. "He called yesterday, and said we won," the owner said exuberantly last week. Finally, she added, she could get some relief.

Now that the process is over, she said, she feels she was treated fairly and is glad her request was approved before the fees were increased.