Faced with drop in parking revenue, San Diego could decide to put meters on more streets

As the city of San Diego grapples with a drop in meter revenue and insufficient parking space, officials see two bustling communities as possible solutions.

San Ysidro and Kearny Mesa will each be part of a new community parking district, in which appointed advisory boards will manage revenue collected from paid parking spots. 

On one hand, the new districts could boost revenue, which has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. But it also may help the neighborhoods’ struggle to find parking, residents say.

Seven years ago, the city generated $11 million in revenue through three parking districts. But even with the recent addition of metered parking in Pacific Beach, that number had dropped to $8.5 million last fiscal year — a 23% decrease.

Most of the parking revenue goes to the city, with roughly half used for administrative costs. The city must spend that revenue on parking-related infrastructure or traffic control, such as pedestrian pathways and bike lanes. 

Less than a quarter of what parking districts collect actually goes back into the community it operates from, and the city continues to explore new ways to use money for “enhanced mobility options,” staff said in a May report. 

Once a parking district is established, an advisory board manages it and makes recommendations to the City Council on how to spend the revenue. The Convoy District Partnership is expected to soon finalize its contract to serve as Kearny Mesa’s board, but it’s not yet clear who will manage the San Ysidro district, as the city cut ties with the organization first considered.

Both neighborhoods have scarce parking for different reasons: Travelers tend to take up San Ysidro parking spots for days as motorists traverse the U.S.-Mexico border, and bike lanes have replaced hundreds of spaces in an already busy business corridor in  Kearny Mesa.

Chula Vista resident Sonia Rangel circles around limited parking spaces at the San Ysidro strip mall where she works. Patrons of neighboring businesses usually take up the parking, making it difficult for her to find a spot, she said.

“It would be nice if we had more parking so that we don’t have to be parking across the street,” she said.

San Ysidro’s unique parking struggles

San Ysidro resident Janet Deshazer said people who don’t live in the area constantly park on her street. She lives on East Beyer Boulevard — one of the scarcest places for parking in San Ysidro, ​​and a mile from the border— and you can find her regularly driving up and down her street, biding her time in search for the next motorist to free up a parking spot. 

Sometimes, she’s unsuccessful.

“Like right now, I’m parked right here because usually it’s crowded, and I can’t pull forward, so I’m blocking their way,” she said as she motions to her neighbor’s driveway. “I usually have to be blocking driveways.”

Often, she sees people who don’t live in the neighborhood leave their cars on her street for too long. “It’s not just like a couple hours, it’s days,” she said.

Vehicles are prohibited from parking on city streets for more than 72 consecutive hours, and when Deshazer reports the vehicles to police, she said they usually only ticket the cars instead of towing them. 

Just up the street from Deshazer’s home is more than a quarter mile of available parking. But those spots are limited to two hours and vehicles are prone to break-ins, she said, so hardly anyone parks there.

Martha Ramos was dropped off with luggage on East Beyer to visit family. Despite being a Tijuana resident, she agrees the lack of parking is getting out of hand.

“It’s difficult because there are some houses or units there that don’t have space for us who are not from here,” Ramos said in Spanish, referring to the times that she drove a vehicle into the U.S. 

Many in the area agree that adding some type of parking adjustment could help. This could look like installing meters, imposing time limits, running valet services, opening lots, or requiring permit parking.

In search for solutions, the city contracted a consulting firm to run a study on parking patterns in areas largely east of interstates 5 and 805 along Beyer and San Ysidro boulevards and Border Village Road. The City Council later officially authorized the San Ysidro parking district in December.

The study found that depending on the time and location, some areas either have extreme shortages during peak hours or underutilized parking spaces.

Rudy Lopez Jr., chair of the San Ysidro Community Planning Group, said the findings are “spot on.” The area is also plagued by abandoned vehicles parked in spots well beyond the two-hour limit, he said, impacting businesses, residential areas and near trolley stations.

Along the East San Ysidro Boulevard corridor, for example, few businesses have a parking lot, and the ones that do have about a dozen or fewer spots. And people hardly choose the area’s paid parking structures, Lopez said.

“People won’t use them,” Lopez said. “They will walk three or four blocks more, and take up residential parking.”

Aside from addressing parking shortages, Lopez hopes new revenue from the parking district could pay for maintenance, cleanliness and security in San Ysidro. 

It’s unknown when or if the city will start charging for parking within the district, though it could take years — Pacific Beach’s district was approved for nearly two decades before meters were installed less than a year ago. A city spokesperson said there are no plans “in the immediate future” to charge for parking in San Ysidro.

The San Ysidro Improvement Corp., which operated the community’s business improvement district, was set to serve as the advisory board for the parking district. But the city notified the group earlier this year it would not move forward with an agreement.

The group is no longer operating the business improvement district, either, after the city terminated its contract in February. City officials did not answer why, and a letter that staff sent to the group notifying it of the termination did not list a reason.

Instead, a spokesperson said the Economic Development Department is managing the San Ysidro BID and being advised by the city’s Small Business Advisory Board.

inewsource was unable to contact the San Ysidro Improvement Corp. Its phone number is disconnected, and Jason Wells, who served as the group’s executive director, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In growing Convoy area, bike lanes replace parking

City officials say Convoy Street in Kearny Mesa has evolved from an industrial area to a neighborhood full of tourists, more housing and businesses. Business owners, especially, hope to have a higher turnover of parking spaces as a way to help customers who drive to the area access storefronts.

Jeff Sallen, who chairs the local community planning group, said the city’s installation of bike lanes this year exacerbated the area’s parking problem by eliminating some 300 spots. 

The planning group, which advises the city on planning decisions, strongly opposed the bike lanes. A petition against the lanes also garnered more than a thousand signatures, according to Sallen.

“I think the biggest desire here is just to add parking, whether it’s paid parking or free parking,” he said. “I don’t think the people in Kearny Mesa even care. It’s just, we need somewhere to park, period.” 

The Convoy District Partnership will serve as the advisory board for the parking district. Chris Cate, a board member of the group and a former city councilmember, said parking in the area was already bad. The bike lanes came after the city’s plans to create a parking district, he said.

Cate said the Convoy District Partnership plans to hear property owners on what parking adjustments should be made, which could look like valet parking or shared parking agreements. When Convoy locals and patrons could see paid parking is currently a “moving target,” he said.

“It’s not just about collecting money,” he said. “We don’t wanna price anybody out of the market either, too. So, I think we gotta be strategic in that.”