Parking! Parking! Parking! Parking is the name of the game in Venice. It is definitely a hot topic of conversation in this town busting with visitors. Some business owners are trying to solve the shortage with mechanical parking structures. Many residents seek city parking structures. But where does Phantom parking fit in?

Phantom parking means one, if qualified, can open a business without parking and bloat residential and commercial neighborhoods with his customers. Not too compatible a situation. Many ask: “Why doesn’t that place have parking?”

Update has been concerned and not knowledgeable. So Update asked Jim Murez, who is on the Land Use and Planning Committee (LUPC) and is running for chair what all this “phantom” parking really is and why we have it. Phantom parking is “credit” and “in-lieu” parking. The following are his answers.

What is credit parking?
An existing project with a non-conforming use under today’s municipal code; where the parking requirements at the time the project was constructed were more relaxed than today’s standards; the net result being that the project may continue to operate with a credit of any shortfall due to the code revisions that have occurred after original project approval.

An example: A project was approved as a Retail Use in 1940 and was required to provide zero parking at the time. Parking requirements were not introduced into the municipal code until the 1970’s (and in Venice where the standards are double that of Los Angeles only became in effect in 1988). Today that same project in Venice would be required to provide one stall for every 225 Sq. Ft. of floor area. In this example, if the building provided 1000 Sq. Ft. of floor area, under today’s standards 4 stalls (1000 / 250 = 4) would be the parking requirement. Therefore, to preserve the properties owners’ rights and not force the building to be condemned due to lack of parking, they receive four credits.

In-Lieu Parking
This topic raises a larger discussion about In-Lieu parking which also ties back to the Venice Specific Plan and the other concept of Adaptive Reuse. In-Lieu parking is the concept that a property may purchase the right to not provide onsite stalls. The concept is a good one which has been horribly implemented by our City. Unlike the working in our Coastal Commission Certified Land Use Plan, the City in creating our Specific Plan dropped some of the most important wording – the cost was tied to a 1988 rate for construction and omitted the part about land value. In 2011 while I was Chair of the VNC Parking Committee, I introduced a working paper that called the City to re-evaluate this concept. In 2012 the City undertook the task and published an official report that basically endorsed what I had been saying for many years – to cheap and nothing was actually getting built with the funds that had been collected.

The concept of Adaptive Reuse, as defined by our Land Use Plan and the Venice Specific Plan, encourages developers to not demolish the existing structures but rather offers incentives to allow them to use what is existing today. Others might include being able to encroach into the Public Right-of-Way along Windward Av in the first block to the beach where the historic Arched Colonnades cover the sidewalks. Parking credits and In-Lieu credits are two of these incentives.