Carlsbad will spend up to $142,900 for a consultant to study parking problems and recommend solutions in the downtown Village, Barrio and beachfront neighborhoods.
The City Council unanimously approved a contract Tuesday with Evari Consulting, Inc., a San Diego firm that will perform 12 periodic parking surveys over the course of a year, finishing in the spring or summer of 2027.
Results of the studies will be used to predict future parking needs and to recommend solutions for parking deficiencies, according to a city report.
Carlsbad has had a parking shortage downtown for a long time, and it’s getting worse with infill development, City Council members said.
Many older, single-story businesses and homes in the area are being replaced by larger, multi-story, mixed-used developments with apartments, condominiums or townhomes. State law allows buildings with affordable housing to include less parking than otherwise would be required by the city.
“Unless you are a developer trying to justify a housing project in the village that offers little to no parking, the one thing that is universally accepted as fact among our residents, visitors and businesses is that Carlsbad needs additional parking in the Village, Barrio and beach areas,” said City Manager Geoff Patnoe.
“While we continue to use paint and other creative ways to find new parking,” Patnoe said, “tonight’s item is designed to help the council get a compressive, data-driven understanding of the scope and scale of the parking issues we are experiencing.”
The city recently created 44 new spaces in the Barrio by removing red curbs along streets where the city staffers determined the prohibited parking was unnecessary. The City Council also approved a plan Tuesday to reduce westbound Grand Avenue between Jefferson Street and the Tyler Street avenue from two lanes to one and replace the parallel parking with diagonal parking. That, along with the installation of a four-way stop at Grand and Madison Avenue, is expected to create another 14 additional parking spaces.
Carlsbad Village Association Executive Director Christine Davis encouraged the City Council to approve the consulting contract.
“Parking is so critical in the Village right now, and has been, and will get increasingly and more and more difficult,” Davis said. “Everyone is in support of this.”
Councilwoman Melanie Burkholder, whose district includes the Village and Barrio, said that, though she often opposes spending money on consultants, she would support this one.
“We need parking to support all of the many businesses in the Village,” Burkholder said. “A study will give us a clearer picture of what we can and can’t do. Everybody will benefit.”