West Hollywood Moves to Eliminate Parking Credit Fees

At its February 18 meeting, the West Hollywood City Council voted to eliminate fees tied to the city’s parking credits program—a move intended to create a fairer system for local businesses. But as council members dug into the details, the discussion quickly shifted to a broader concern: whether the city has enough parking to go around.

The parking credits program, established in 2012, was originally designed to help businesses expand without having to provide additional off-street parking. But Assistant Director of Community Development Jennifer Alkire told the council that changes in state and local regulations have made the program less relevant.

“In 2018, the city lowered parking requirements for many commercial uses,” she explained. Then, in 2023, AB 2097 took things even further by prohibiting cities from requiring minimum parking for new developments.

The result? “Now we have a certain set of businesses that pay fees for parking credits because they’re required in their conditions of approval, and we have new businesses that come in and they aren’t required to pay those fees,” Alkire said. Instead of making businesses jump through administrative hoops to get those fees waived, the simplest solution, she argued, was to eliminate them altogether.

Councilmember Lauren Meister agreed that getting rid of the fees might be fairer for businesses, but she wasn’t convinced it would be good for the city’s bottom line.

“The fee, as it’s even shown in the staff report, went towards the parking improvement fund,” she pointed out. “So how do we then have funds for the parking improvement fund if we don’t charge for parking credits?”

Parking Services Manager Vince Guarino didn’t have an immediate answer. “That is one of the impacts that it will have,” he admitted. “We’ll have to figure out how we’re going to address that revenue shortfall.”

Meister also asked about the parking credit survey the city was supposed to conduct every six months. Guarino confirmed that the last one was done before COVID-19 because demand for the credits had dwindled.

Vice Mayor John Heilman supported eliminating the fees but raised concerns about parking in general, particularly at the city’s five-story parking structure. Businesses had long relied on that structure under the parking credits program, but lately, he said, finding a spot has become a struggle.

“I have come in on several occasions where it’s very difficult to find a parking space at all in the parking structure,” he said.

He also questioned whether businesses were taking advantage of the city’s lower parking rates. “Some of it is people who are employees of other businesses, not to mention the PDC, where they charge substantially more for parking than we do, so maybe that’s something that needs to be looked at.”

Councilmember John Erickson asked about the city’s valet program, wondering whether it should be expanded to weekends to help with overflow parking. Guarino said valet is offered during council meetings if demand justifies it but noted that many visitors don’t like using valet at all.

Councilmember Danny Hang added another issue to the mix—bigger vehicles. “Cars are getting bigger too, and I’ve noticed that in the parking lot,” he said. “Trucks are getting bigger, people are driving them and parking them in there, taking over more than one spot, one and a half spots.”

Meister suggested a formal parking needs assessment, particularly since the newly opened Aquatic and Recreation Center (ARC) has added to parking demand.

“I remember when Oscar Delgado was here, and we had a project come before us that wanted to reduce their parking by 100 spaces,” she recalled. “At that time, no one from staff said anything about whether we would need those spaces because of ARC. The truth of the matter is, we probably did need those spaces.”

Heilman agreed that the city should investigate parking issues but didn’t think hiring a consultant was necessary—at least not yet. “I wasn’t authorizing them to go and hire a consultant to do a needs assessment but to investigate,” he clarified. City staff said they would look into the issue and report back if an outside study was needed.

The council voted to eliminate parking credit fees while directing staff to examine parking shortages, valet service expansion, and possible reconfigurations to make better use of the library parking lot. If necessary, they’ll return with a proposal for a more in-depth study.

While the decision makes life easier for businesses, it also underscores a bigger challenge—how West Hollywood will manage parking as the city continues to grow.