The city of Thousand Oaks began work on the creation of 26 angled parking places on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, in front of the Lakes shopping center last week. According to a story in the 7-8 Thousand Oaks Acorn, the project is replacing 16 parallel parking spots on the street, or adding a net of 10 parking places. The cost is is expected to be $230,000, plus almost $78,000 for the design expense.
I visited the site on Sunday (7-11) and looked at the work area from the east of the Lakes down T.O. Boulevard, as shown in the photo.
At the west end of the angled parking project, I found this stump of an oak tree that was cut down so that the parking area deeper. This is so that drivers will have more room to back up on to T.O. Boulevard, when leaving their parking spot.
Let’s do the math: $230,000 + $78,000 = $308,000 for 10 additional parking spaces. Do you think $30,800/parking space is a good deal?
I just want to thank Claudia bill de la Pena for being the one T.O. City Councilmember to vote against this project! To read the article in the Thousand Oaks Acorn by Nancy Needham, go to: http://www.toacorn.com/news/2010-07-08/Community/Work_begins_on_26_new_parking_spaces_for_The_Lakes.html
Post and photo by Janna Orkney
The cost of this project is even more than indicated here depending on how you do the math. There was also a study to determine what to do with the ill-conceived and failing Lakes Shopping Center. $95,000 was paid to a consulting firm in San Francisco and the angled parking idea was presented as one solution to the problems at the Lakes. Additionally, it is my understanding that Caruso Affiliates, developers of the project, kicked in $100,000 to offset costs. I am not sure how that is factored in.
The hardest part of this to believe is that it was suggested that the angled parking would add to business by letting people know that the Lakes is not a park but rather a shopping center. If someone could produce one person from this community who doesn’t know this is a shopping center, please do so. The problem is not the parking it is what you get once you park there.
I would like to suggest a partial solution to this unwise expenditure of City funds. That would be to install parking meters for these prime spots, except for the handicapped spaces, if they in fact included those. The meters would help pay the City back and at maybe $1 an hour with time limits would certainly be worth the convenience and discourage theatre-goers from trying to avoid the $8 parking charge in the nearby Civic Arts Plaza parking structure. I had an idea for transplanting the oak to another spot at a local landscaper’s expense but it is too late for that it would seem.
Respectfully submitted,
Billy Martin
Candidate for City Council
(For more on reckless City spending, see Letters to the Acorn page 5, July 15th.)
I was with a TO resident yesterday (who is a long time, very conservative person) seeing Cinderella at the Civic Arts Plaza. She says that the Lakes is a failure and thinks the angled parking is a huge fiscal and practical mistake.