Parking Spaces

SPARR HEIGHTS — More than three years after the Sparr Heights Community Center was remodeled, seniors who use the center are continuing to call on the city to find a solution to what they feel is a lack of parking in the area. But nearby school officials are worried that more parking might create a public-safety hazard. Proponents of more parking have suggested head-in parking spaces, which would create parking spaces perpendicular to the north sidewalk of nearby Paloma Avenue and would open more spaces than parallel spaces would, but that approach has only created more problems.

The city's parking proposal, shown by Glendale Unified School District to our PTA leadership, with head-in parking on Paloma Avenue is not the best solution for the area ("Board objects to city parking plan," July 1-2). Fremont Elementary School and Sparr Heights Community Center are across the street from each other. The community center is on a triangular-shaped block with handicapped access along Paloma Avenue and the building entrance on Glencoe Way. Fremont's main entrance is on Las Palmas Avenue with the second entrance on Paloma Avenue; the school has no on-site parking.

GLENDALE ? College officials hope that a $20-million, multi-agency project will turn the Garfield Campus and surrounding area into a civic hub with landscaping and plenty of parking. Glendale Community College administrators will ask the Board of Trustees to approve a request Monday for preliminary architectural plans for the modernization of existing classrooms, the addition of three or four new classrooms, the addition of about 200 parking spaces and a common student area that would include a cafeteria, study hall, meeting room and book store.

GLENDALE ? People who work in the Sparr Heights business district can now park their cars in neighboring Montrose after the Glendale City Council unanimously decided to include them in Montrose Shopping Park Assn.'s employee parking permit program. The $120-a-year parking permit, which was introduced in Montrose last year, allows members of the Sparr Heights Business District Assn. to park in one of eight public lots in Montrose and exempts them from the usual three-hour parking limit.

Bids for a new valet and self-park parking lot at Bob Hope Airport came in at double what the airport authority has budgeted for the project, sending officials back to the drawing board. The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority on Monday approved redesigning its plans for the 27-acre Star Park property and will put the project back out to bid in early 2006. The airport budgeted $13 million to improve the site but bids for the work came back in at $26 million.

The Costa Mesa Police Department is ticketing parents who stop illegally at Davis Elementary School while dropping off or picking up their children. On Monday afternoon, the department stationed officers along Presidio Square, a back street outside Davis, where parents often stop before and after school. By mid-afternoon Tuesday, the officers had cited 13 drivers for stopping or parking in the red zone, which extends along a row of parking spaces.

The Glendale Redevelopment Agency has given its blessing to a four-story, mixed-use project on the corner of Broadway and Louise Street, a move that city officials say will go a long way toward revitalizing the downtown area. The agency, made up of the City Council, approved preliminary design plans and environmental documents on Tuesday for the project, which is being proposed by Arizona-based SNK Development Inc. The half-acre site would eventually house 34 condominium units on three upper floors, with more than 3,900 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

There won't be an influx of students on downtown streets anytime soon, following the Glendale Redevelopment Agency's denial on Tuesday of a parking deal for Glendale Career College. The college, which was planning on moving its campus from Grandview Avenue to the old Cost Plus World Market building at the corner of Brand Boulevard and California Avenue, was applying for an exemption from the city's parking regulations in order to operate downtown.

Residents opposed to a California Chicken Cafe moving into their neighborhood have filed an appeal protesting the Burbank Planning Board's unanimous approval of parking exceptions and allowing the restaurant's patrons to bring their own alcohol. Neighbors of the proposed restaurant, planned for 2921 W. Magnolia Blvd., will meet Monday to discuss the restaurant's impending arrival. "Since the city Planning [department] staff had recommended not approving the application, we felt we should pursue this further, just to make sure," said Penny Church, who lives along Niagara Street, which intersects Magnolia.