Loading...
04-11-2007 - Minutes TCCITY OF ORANGE CITY TRAFFIC COMMISSION Minutes of a Regular Meeting: April 11, 2007 Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated. I. OPENING A. Flag Pledge B. Roll Call Present – Commissioners: L. Dick, N. Lall, W. King Present – Staff: T. Mahood, D. Allenbach, W. Winthers, Sgt. J. Gray, P. Then Absent - J. Beil, J. Pyne A quorum being present Vice-Chairman Lall will preside at this meeting. C. Approval of Minutes Š March 11, 2007 ACTION: Approved as published by the Recording Secretary. MOTION: N. Lall SECOND: W. King AYES: Unanimous ABSTAIN: II. ORAL PRESENTATIONS None this meeting.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 2 III. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Request to add Grand Street between Walnut Avenue and Everett Avenue as a Secondary Emergency Response Route to the City’s Residential Neighborhood Traffic Management Program. Fire Department CITY OF ORANGE The oral presentation is based on the written staff report; please refer to your copy. There was no discussion of this request. ACTION: Approved the request to add Grand Street between Walnut Avenue and Everett Avenue as a Secondary Emergency Response Route to the City’s Residential Neighborhood Traffic Management Program. MOTION: L. Dick SECOND: W. King AYES: Unanimous 77777777777777777 End of Consent Items 777777777777777777 IV. CONSIDERATION ITEMS 1. Request for the installation of “2-Hour” time limit parking restrictions in front of 1044-1100 West Katella Avenue. Adam Antoyon 1050 W. Katella Ave., #J Orange CA 92867 The oral presentation is based on the written staff report; please refer to your copy. There was no discussion of this request. ACTION: Continued this request to the next meeting. MOTION: L. Dick SECOND: W. King AYES: Unanimous Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 3 2. Request for the installation of “NO PARKING 7 PM – 7 AM” restrictions on both sides of Nicholas Avenue between Batavia Street and Hariton Street. W. T. Froemke 419 W. Brenna Ln. Orange CA 92867 The oral presentation is based on the written staff report; please refer to your copy. Vice-Chairman Lall opened the public hearing for the following discussion: Commissioner Dick – This says from 7 PM to 7 AM, would we benefit by putting in 2-Hour time limit parking? Does that become too much of a problem for the enforcement? That would resolve people that are parking here all day. Dave Allenbach, Transportation Analyst – The problem with 2-Hour parking is that the Parking Control officers have to return every 2 hours. With an evening restriction, in this particular case, businesses close generally between 5-6 PM so there really is no demand for on-street parking at night. Any parking control office who could be on duty in the evening or a patrol officer merely has to drive down the street and anyone parked on the street could be cited, which simplifies the enforcement activities. Vice-Chairman Lall closed the public hearing and returned the item to the Commission for further discussion and a motion. ACTION: Approved the request to implement “NO PARKING 7 PM - 7 AM” parking restrictions on both sides of Nicholas Ave. between Batavia St. and Hariton St. MOTION: W. King SECOND: N. Lall AYES: Unanimous Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 4 3. Request to restrict parking between “8 AM and 8 PM” on the west side of Meads Avenue between 1490 & 1480 N. Meads Ave. Grant Anderson COUNTY OF ORANGE 300 N. Flower St. Santa Ana CA 92702 The oral presentation is based on the written staff report; please refer to your copy. Vice-Chairman Lall opened the public hearing for the following discussion: Ron Menosky, 1490 N. Meads Ave. – You mention this property is within the City. There is a large area north and south of our houses and other areas on Meads Ave. that are worse than this situation, and there are cars parked on those streets. I would say there are cars parked on the street once every 3-4 days at the most and I don’t see the reason for time limit on this area if you’re not going to do it on the majority of Meads Ave. Commissioner L. Dick – Did I not understand? Dave Allenbach, Transportation Analyst – This restriction begins just to the north at Frank Dr. and continues south along the reach of Meads Ave. I believe there is a crossing south where the road bends to the right and the horse trail is actually on the southeast side of the street, it is our understand this restriction will go the full length of Meads Ave. Tom Mahood, City Traffic Engineer – It goes all the way to Santiago Canyon Rd. to the north and to Hillside at the south, and almost all of that is within the County, and is their jurisdiction. Vice-Chariman Lall – All of Meads Ave.? Tom Mahood, City Traffic Engineer – Yes. Vice Chairman Lall – So staff is trying to add those two areas to the project so it can be consistent. Knowing now that the restriction is to be the full length of Meads Ave., does that change your opinion, would you be in favor of this now that you see the continuity? Ron Menosky – 1490 N. Meads Ave. – I’m going to let our next speaker address this question. Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 5 Eva Casas, 1480 N. Meads Ave. – My mother-in-law lives alone but we are there pretty much every weekend. All of our family celebrations occur at her home, we’re opposed to the parking restriction because we don’t want to impose on our neighbors across the street where we would be forced to park. During recent improvements at my mother-in-law’s house we received complaints from our neighbors of contractors parking. This space is open in front of our 2 homes about 90% of the time. The only person that parks here on a consistent basis is a van belonging to a particular neighbor from across the street, and she has 2-3 parking spaces in her driveway plus in front of her house, but that is her van you see. If you are going to implement these parking restrictions I would like you to provide exceptions for Mr. Menosky and myself to be able to park there. Is there any way you can do an exception or leave weekends open? Vice-Chairman Lall – Legally I don’t think we can deal with any exceptions. Tom Mahood, City Traffic Engineer – This request originates from the County of Orange by Tom Davidson, who is the President of the Orange Park Acres Association. We could, if the Commission so chooses, not enact a restriction along these 2 parcels. The County has already approved the parking restriction on the rest of Meads Ave. as of March 15th, and they will probably be posting it within the next 2-3 weeks. If this is the only place on Meads that allows parking you are going to start getting people parking in front of your homes now that usually don’t park on the street. Eva Casas, 1480 N. Meads Ave. – Is the neighbor to the south in the City? Tom Mahood, City Traffic Engineer – No, that is in the County of Orange. Your parcel and Mr. Menosky’s parcel are the only two parcels on the west side of Meads Ave. that are actually in the City of Orange. The idea you suggested about allowing parking on the weekends is something we have discussed but there is probably a lot more equestrian activity on the weekends, and that is the one time of the week you need that route clear for the horse riders. Eva Casas, 1480 N. Meads Ave. – These 2 homes are pretty much the end of the line for Meads Ave., the others cross a creek and after that are 2 homes and their property intrudes so much into the street that people are most likely not going to come over from Santiago Canyon Rd. to park there. Tom Mahood, City Traffic Engineer – The applicant’s intent is to provide the connection down into Santiago Oaks Regional Park by having the equestrians cross Santiago Canyon Rd. at the signal and then get the riders down into the Park. Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 6 Chairman Dick – Your property is at the north end of the street closer to Santiago Canyon Rd. But of all of those homes, there’s dozens, there will be no parking in the County segment. I think Tom makes a good point that people are going to be parking in front of your house because they can’t park anywhere else. Eva Casas, 1480 N. Meads Ave. – I don’t think that is going to happen, I don’t believe people will come from across Santiago Canyon Rd. to park there just because you have the hillside thing, the park is over there and so many other areas that are safe to park. Commissioner King – Is it my understanding that this is part of the Orange Park Acres Plan as an equestrian trail? Dave Allenbach, Transportation Analyst – This area has been used as a defacto trail for many years. People are riding in the area and they are crossing the street to get to Santiago Oaks Regional Park. The issue is when somebody is parked in this area, and in general this area is about 10 ft., from the edge of pavement to the property line, further down is a grade separation between the shoulder and the road. Primarily this is being used as an area to ride, which is out of the travel lane. If the car door were open or not you would have to ride out into the travel lane to get around the car; if there is oncoming traffic that could be dangerous for a rider. A bike lane would be about 5-6 ft. wide, and a parking lane is generally 8 ft. wide. You would need at least 13 ft. in order to allow parking and a safe passage around a parked vehicle, if you were going to have a bike lane. The area is currently being used as part of the area’s trail system and this seems like a reasonable request, it allows parking at night which is generally when people are going to be home. The County does not provide for any exceptions for days of the week or on holidays, this is strictly 7-days a week parking restriction. Ron Menosky, 1490 N. Meads Ave. – We have a lot of streets other than Meads, how about all the streets east where all the people have their horses, there are no restrictions on the parking over there. There must be 25-30 houses that have horses and the people ride up and down the street all the time. Vice-Chairman Lall closed the public hearing and returned the item to the Commission for further discussion and a motion. Commissioner Dick – I am sorry that we can never make everyone as happy as they would like to be, and I’m particularly unhappy about what I consider to be any erosion of personal property rights. On the other hand, when we buy lands that have covenants and restrictions in the deeds that is part of the understanding, and by virtue that we work for a society of laws this is apparently part of the Orange Park Acres identified equestrian trail. OTPA has, as we have pointed out, applied to, petitioned for, and been granted by the County of Orange Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 7 the same restriction for the length of the street with the exception of your two parcels. In keeping with the continuity of master plans I believe I have to come down in favor of eliminating the parking from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Commissioner King – I share this opinion. The street and all the houses are all NO PARKING now because the County did that. The County is asking us to follow- through with the last 2 houses. ACTION: Approved the request restricting parking between “8 AM and 8 PM” on the west side of Meads Avenue between 1490 & 1480 N. Meads Ave. MOTION: L. Dick SECOND: W. King AYES: Unanimous 1. Request and petition from the residents of the 500 block of N. Wayfield St. for the removal of the “NO PARKING 11 PM – 7 AM” restrictions, and the implementation of a Neighborhood Parking Permit Program. Linda Biares 560 N. Wayfield St. Orange CA 92867 The oral presentation is based on the written staff report; please refer to your copy. Vice-Chairman Lall opened the public hearing for the following discussion: David Frizzle, 525 N. Wayfield St. –Members of the neighborhood were talking before today’s meeting, we’ve never communicated about this, we’ve been working at getting one thing or another and we’d like to delay this for another hearing. Just leave things as they are and let the neighborhood meet and see what we can work out to present to you. Vice-Chairman Lall – I think this is a wise suggestion, I think last time the Commission was pretty clear that we weren’t going in the right direction, and the parking permit program would probably be the best solution, but that’s something for you all to discuss. Dave Steele, 575 N. Wayfield St. – Dave Frizzel and I several of the others did have a talk outside with an agreement, the agreement was breached right here when Dona got up and talked. The agreement now is that we want the signs down. Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 8 Douglas Payan, 565 N. Wayfield St. – I’d like to have the signs removed also, it wasn’t really explained to me what was going on. When my family members come to visit and stay the night it’s very inconvenient to have to move all their cars onto my lawn, which I believe is illegal. I was being a nice neighbor when I signed that, but I would really like to rescind that. Mary Frizzle, 525 N. Wayfield St. – I would like to have the signs remain until we can present the request for the permit parking. We had no idea this permit parking was going to come up today, we didn’t know that had been turned in. I’m worried permits would be sold to anybody and there would be more permits issued than parking spaces available. Right now the neighborhood looks nice, we don’t have people from outside the area parking, they made noise at night, left trash and it was a safety issue to us until the signs were installed and it was deteriorating property values and I have a big concern about that. We can all chip in the for the $965.00 application fee. Vice-Chairman Lall – A question was raised about the number of permits issued and a concern there might be too many. Sgt. Dan Adams, OPD Traffic Bureau – The permits are issued to residents only and there are some landlord restrictions also if there are rental properties in the permit area. There are a lot of different variables with this but usually there are 3-4 permits per residence, but permits are only issued to residents that show proof of their residency. Robin Bleiweiss, 550 N. Wayfield St. – It’s become quite a hardship on our street and nobody seems to be able to get along right now. In the minutes of August 9th I want to say you have extraordinary physic capability because it says, “I suspect we will see you folks back here again wanting that parking permit program”, and while we don’t necessarily want parking permits we would like to have the ban on overnight parking rescinded. Many of us didn’t attend the last meeting because we didn’t think such a thing would pass in the City of Orange. I didn’t realize a small vocal minority could change our street. We pay property taxes so we can use the parking places in front of our houses for overnight guests. It’s very inconvenient as some of us have to park many houses away from our homes. The parking ban could be interpreted as an attempt to resolve a drug problem in the neighborhood. There have been incidents of vandalism on the side streets, Madison cars have been broken into and windows smashed and graffiti painted on cars parked on that side street. This area is zoned as single-family residences and I don’t understand that but how many cars can be at a home? There is more noise and trash in the area than before the restrictions because there are more people having to walk back and forth to move cars. Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 9 Erlinda Biares, 560 N. Wayfield St. – I originally sent in the petition because all I hear is complaints without action so I initiated the request. I believe we have to work together as a community to solve this problem. At our initial request to the Commission last August there was nobody in the audience opposing the request. Dona Strader, 545 N. Wayfield St. – When they first built apartments down the street all available on-street parking got filled up so they started parking in our neighborhood; they’d pull up at night and then they park over the weekends and it doesn’t leave parking available for our guests. After the signs went up the strange cars are gone, we can watch our neighbor’s house and if there is a strange car there we know something is going on. There are a few elderly residents in the neighborhood concerned for their safety, a couple of the ladies live alone and if there are all these strange cars parked in the neighborhood they get nervous. Vice-Chairman Lall closed the public hearing and returned the item to the Commission for further discussion and a motion. Commissioner Dick – The petition that was presented that we can really address today concerned the removal of the existing “no parking” signs. I would be in favor of leaving the signs in place at least for another month and let the community see if they can address that issue among themselves, if not we’ll be here next month and we’ll be glad to talk to you about it. It will be my Motion that we leave those signs in place. Commissioner King – I’ll second that. I will go on to say that you guys need to get together in the neighborhood and decide what you want. It’s clear that some of you want it and some of you don’t want it. In the end you have to tell us what you want as a neighborhood. Acting Chairman Lall – We heard this issue when it was first presented to us last year and very few of the residents attended the meeting to discuss it, we made our decision based on the comments from the residents that attended, the staff report and our own opinions. I hope you will talk it out together as there are several options available for consideration. If you will please get together in the spirit of good neighbors and understand that if the parking problem isn’t in front of your house it’s in front of your neighbor’s down the street, we should work together to find a mutually accepted resolution. ACTION: Denied the request. MOTION: L. Dick SECOND: W. King AYES: Unanimous Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 10 Unidentified speaker from the audience – Do we have to submit the request again for the parking permits? Dave Allenbach, Transportation Analyst – We cannot consider the implementation of a parking permit program without a letter of request and $965 application fee. In this particular case we would probably want to consider the entire area, not just Wayfield St. but both sides of Madison, including the cul-de- sac and Orange Grove Ave. up to where the business district begins. Roughly if they wish to pursue permits and they want to contribute to the application fee, that would be about $22-$23 per household. If they wish to have the overnight restriction removed completely and not consider any permit parking they would submit a simple letter of request. We will notify again every resident on both sides of Wayfield St. that would be affected by the removal of those signs and we would discuss it at that point. 5. Request for the installation of red curb markings at the following locations: a.) Lemon St. south of Maple Ave. b.) Maple Ave. east of Cypress St. c.) Maple Ave. east of Glassell St. d.) Palm Ave. west of Lemon St. Orange County Transportation Authority 550 S. Main St. Orange CA 92863-1584 The oral presentation is based on the written staff report; please refer to your copy. Vice-Chairman Lall opened the public hearing for the following discussion: Commissioner Dick – My question really has application to the notification to the people involved. I noticed the stack of envelopes of mail returned by the Post Office containing our meeting notices. I am confident that the gentleman on Meads Ave. received the letter. I would be surprised that someone would not open that. This letter says “Occupant” and I have to tell you I’m not real moved by “Occupant” letters and I have a feeling that I could have been guilty of this as well. Wayne Winthers, Asst. City Attorney – I had a gentleman in my office the other day, he is a property owner we are dealing with on a code enforcement matter and he came into my office with 10 unopened envelopes that had been sent to him over the last year concerning this property from the Code Enforcement staff and my office. He finally opened the last envelope that said you are due in Court in two weeks kind of thing, and he said I figured they were junk mail. I said he might want to open them. Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 11 ACTION: 1) Approved the installation of 60 ft. of red curb at the following locations: a) West side of Lemon St. south of Maple Ave. b) South side of Maple Ave. east of Cypress St. MOTION: L. Dick SECOND: W. King AYES: Unanimous ACTION: 2) Approved the installation of 20 ft. of red curb at the following locations: a) North side of Palm Ave. west of Lemon St. b) South side of Maple Ave. west of Glassell St. MOTION: L. Dick SECOND: W. King AYES: Unanimous 777777777777777 End of Consideration Items 7777777777777777 V. ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS None this meeting. Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper Minutes of a Regular Meeting – City Traffic Commission –April 11, 2007 Pg. 12 VI. ADJOURNMENT After discussion of today’s Agenda the City Traffic Commission meeting was concluded, and as there were no further requests for action under Oral Presentations, the Chairman adjourned this session of the City Traffic Commission. The next meeting of the City Traffic Commission is scheduled: 5:30 P.M. Wednesday - May 9, 2007 Respectfully submitted, CITY OF ORANGE Phyllis Then, Recording Secretary Traffic Engineering Division pthen@cityoforange.org CITY OF ORANGE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT 300 E. CHAPMAN AVENUE ORANGE CA 92866 PH: (714) 744-5536 FAX: (714) 744-5573 Tape #CTC-27.03 of this City Traffic Commission meeting is available for your review. Please contact the Recording Secretary at (714) 744-5536 in this regard, advance notice is appreciated.  April ‘07 [N:/Traffic/CTC/2007 Minutes] Printed on Recycled Paper