The Boystown neighborhood of West Hollywood will join a rapidly expanding roster of neighborhoods offering parking credits for new and expanding businesses, reports the WeHo Patch. The city council yesterday voted unanimously to pass the pilot project that will launch in the neighborhood surrounding the Pacific Design Center and the library--the parking at those facilities offer the parking supply necessary for the program to work. If the program is successful it can expand to other neighborhoods in the city and to existing businesses. WeHo's parking credit program will commence with an inventory of parking spaces--the first such count by WeHo. The city will count "parking decks, street parking and private lots available for public use" every six months. With that inventory in hand, "the city will then sell yearly parking credits to businesses that need to meet off-site parking requirements." Once purchased, utilitzed parking credits will be subtracted from the total pool of credits. A credit for one space will cost $375 per year.
WeHo Mayor John Duran touts the economic benefits of the parking credit scheme, which allows new, usually small businesses an alternative to cost-prohibitive parking requirements: "If often seems our economic development is contingent on parking availability rather than the other way around...This is a great way to prioritize our goal, which is economic development, and do the parking attached to that rather than the other way around."
WeHo joins Atwater Village and Eagle Rock as neighborhoods that have recently implemented a parking credits scheme. The model is based on a system that found success in revitalizing Old Town Pasadena.
· City Adopts New Parking Credits Program [WeHo Patch]
· Less Parking Required in New Atwater Pedestrian District [Curbed LA]
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