Nearly two years ago, Mayor Todd Gloria ordered a doubling of the number of personnel tasked with enforcing the law against parking a vehicle in the same spot for more than 72 hours.
That may not have satisfied the public, judging from the volume of complaints City Council members say they are still receiving about cars and trucks left on the street.
The council’s Public Safety Committee last week unanimously approved amending the 72-hour limit to make it even more restrictive.
That raises a question of whether adding to the law will change much if enforcing the existing rules isn’t living up to people’s expectations despite beefed-up staffing.
Many of the examples from residents and council members aired at the committee hearing already are violations of the existing 72-hour ordinance or other laws.
A broader issue is whether this should be such a priority given all the other needs in the city.
Further, an audit last year documented that people most affected by towings triggered by the limit have lower incomes or are homeless — people who can least afford to lose their vehicle or pay to get it back.
Residents have long expressed irritation about cars left on the streets of their neighborhoods, which David Garrick of The San Diego Union-Tribune noted has been the top complaint to the city in recent years.
There’s no question that cars parked in the same spot for days on end can be a nuisance and that vehicles that are actually abandoned can be a blight on a neighborhood.
It can be frustrating when parking spaces in your neighborhood are hard to find, especially if there are cars that never seem to move or belong to people who don’t live nearby. But, then, streets are public and parking is not for the exclusive use of a given community.
The committee voted to amend the municipal code to require people to move their vehicle at least a half-mile away within three days to restart the 72-hour clock, instead of the one-tenth of a mile now in the law.
That would make the city code consistent with the county law.
But the issue doesn’t seem to be that a tenth of a mile isn’t enough. City officials say enforcing existing rules is difficult because people move their cars just a short distance — or “move it like three feet or something” in the words of Councilmember Jennifer Campbell.
It’s not clear how that would change by demanding vehicles be moved at least a half-mile. To be blunt, a lot of residents just want these automobiles out of sight, which seemingly would be accomplished with the tenth-of-a-mile rule, if car owners followed the rules.
Kohta Zaiser, Gloria’s deputy director of community engagement, said at the committee meeting that “Illegally parked vehicles often block sidewalks, bike lanes and crosswalks and put pedestrians, cyclists and motorists at risk.”
That may be the case, but vehicles parked in such a manner already violate city laws independent of the 72-hour limit, as Catherine Douglass of La Jolla pointed out.
The notion that the longer distance would help free up parking only goes so far, so to speak. Unless the autos are removed from the streets forever, they’re going to end up somewhere, impacting the parking in a different location.
Many areas, particularly commercial districts, allow street parking only for a limited time during the day, typically anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours. The 72-hour limit is in place where there are no other restrictions.
Further cracking down on 72-hour parking violations would likely mean more towed vehicles. The city’s towing practices became a flash point following an audit released late last year that showed low-income and homeless San Diegans are disproportionately affected, according to the Union-Tribune.
The audit found that vehicle impounds for expired registrations and violations of the 72-hour parking limit “are more likely to end in sales allowing tow companies to recoup impound costs that can total thousands of dollars,” according to the Voice of San Diego. Unpaid tickets also are a top reason vehicles get towed.
Several San Diego officials said they were disturbed by the audit and planned to look into changing the towing policy by including a “text before tow” program, parking “boots,” community service instead of fines and some fee forgiveness based on income.
However, an analysis by inewsource six months after the audit was released in November found the city had been continuing the towing for expired registrations, unpaid tickets and the 72-hour limit at roughly the same rate as before.
The audit said the towing program was losing roughly $2 million a year, partly because San Diego imposes lower fines than other cities and partly because low-income people often give up their vehicle rather than pay the fines they owe.
Pressure for street parking could grow in the future because of the city’s development policy. San Diego has eased parking requirements for many new buildings, which in some cases allows developments to not include parking, or provide less of it than under previous rules.
Ideally, people moving into those places would use public transportation, but the likely reality is some will have cars and rely on street parking.
Last year, the city moved to increase the number of people dealing with the parking problem from six to 12, along with buying more enforcement vehicles.
San Diego set a goal of reducing the amount of time it typically takes to remove an abandoned vehicle from about seven weeks to six days.
The city will consider adding more non-sworn, civilian staff to enforce the 72-hour limit and other violations during next year’s budget process, according to Rachel Laing, Gloria’s director of communications.
Even with more resources, police face certain limits on when they can remove a vehicle, unless it’s an emergency or significant public safety concern.
People can only report a vehicle after it has been in the same space for at least three days. Even if police get on it immediately, they must issue a warning and wait three more days to tow the vehicle.
That may never be fast enough for some residents.
