Promenade on Forest<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe council provided direction to staff that included a six-month extension of temporary use permits for the restaurants currently operating parklets that sit on public parking spaces. Eateries that fit into that category have until then to transition their outdoor dining setting to the sidewalk or risk losing it entirely.<\/p>\n
Assembly Bill 413 is also a consideration. That legislation, which became effective Jan. 1, prohibits vehicle parking within 20 feet of the approach side of a crosswalk. Those spaces could be converted into landscaping, pedestrian amenities or potentially sidewalk-based dining areas.<\/p>\n
Adonis, located on Park Avenue, Oto Sushi on Glenneyre Street, Salerno on Beach Street and Tango on Forest Avenue each used two public parking spaces for parklets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t personally favor keeping the parklets there because, first of all, all the businesses knew that it sunsetted at the end of this year,\u201d Councilwoman Sue Kempf said. \u201cThat was always the case \u2014 it was extended once, I think. I don\u2019t really favor it because \u2026 I don\u2019t think they look very good. In fact, I could point out some of them I just find appalling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like outdoor dining. I like the idea of the promenade. I think people like a gathering space, but it is taking up parking. We can say that we\u2019re going to get more sidewalk dining, we\u2019re going to do our bump-outs and stuff, but it will be a couple years probably before that\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Pro Tem Mark Orgill took a similar tone, remarking that there were spaces being \u201ctaken advantage of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spend a lot of time walking around downtown and evaluating the retail climate,\u201d Orgill said. \u201cWe\u2019re all talking constantly, being anxious about getting some retailers that can really bring the downtown to life, but then I see these parklets that have been let go. \u2026 I find it quite frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently, the city\u2019s temporary outdoor dining and parklet program allows for up to 68 parking spaces to be repurposed for outdoor dining. A staff report noted there are 49 total spaces being by businesses for that purpose.<\/p>\n
Las Brisas on Cliff Drive, which is adjacent to Heisler Park and overlooks the sea, converted 14 private parking spaces. Laguna Beach Beer Company on Laguna Canyon Road converted six spaces for outdoor tables.<\/p>\n
Council members pushed for long-term, sidewalk-based solutions, while also indicating a desire to evaluate businesses operating outdoor dining on private spaces individually.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s a better solution long term, and I want to give businesses time to make that shift,\u201d Councilwoman Hallie Jones said. \u201cIn terms of private spaces \u2026 I think we need to look at them on a case-by-case basis and see what the parking requirements are going to be, and how we start recapturing some of those parking spaces, because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really fair to be using these private spaces for dining and putting all those customers out into city spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council directed staff to extend the temporary use permits by up to one year for businesses offering outdoor dining without the use of parking spaces while a permanent program is developed.<\/p>\n
Restaurants using private parking areas may also see their temporary use permits extended by a year. Staff would evaluate each property and return with recommendations, including the possibility of conditional use permit amendments, parking management participation or applying existing parking-reduction provisions.<\/p>\n
For businesses currently using public parking spaces for parklets, the council directed staff to limit the extension of those temporary use permits by six months. Those establishments will also be subject to updated maintenance and operational standards. Guidelines could prohibit the use of parklets for storage, call for them to be open during business hours and require upkeep of the outdoor dining facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laguna Beach\u2019s outdoor dining scene could be in for some changes, particularly for restaurants not located on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[387,1409,2323,41031,43533,10,131,133,132,43534,43529,43530,43531,1457,5560,43532,315,72],"class_list":["post-74801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-business","tag-city","tag-council","tag-direction","tag-downtown-promenade","tag-laguna-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-term-outdoor-dining-program","tag-outdoor-dining-scene","tag-parklet-program","tag-public-parking-space","tag-restaurant","tag-staff","tag-temporary-use-permit","tag-time","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}