Breaking Down the Highland Park Transit Village's Parking Plan

Locals have expressed numerous concerns about the proposed Highland Park Transit Village, which would transform three city-owned parking lots near the Metro Gold Line Station into 60 affordable apartment units and 20 for-sale condos.

Chief among those concerns expressed by attendees of Thursday evening's Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council meeting was how the new development would parking impact parking in the neighborhood.

According to tentative plans presented by developers McCormack, Baron, Salazar, the project would be built on the current location of 221 Los Angeles Department of Transportation parking stalls.

Louis Bernardy, Vice President of McCormack, Baron Salazar, those parking stalls would be replaced through a mixture of below ground and surface level parking.

"There will be a one to one replacement of city owned parking stalls," Bernardy said during a phone interview on Wednesday.

According to plans provided to Patch by Bernardy, 104 of those parking spaces would be split between site 1, which is located between Avenue 57 and 58 behind North Figueroa Street, and site 2, which located west of Avenue 59 behind North Figueroa Street.

Those 104 stalls would be split between below ground/garage and surface level spaces.

The remaining 116 spots would be located on site 3, located between Avenues 56 and 57 behind North Figueroa Street, where the 20 for-sale condo units would be built. All 116 spots would be located in a below ground parking structure. 

Each development would also be designed with resident-only parking as requried by city building codes. For the condos, two parking stalls would be assigned to every unit. The plans also call for one guest parking spot for every four condo units.

The parking ratio for the affordable apartments were not made clear in the plans provided by McCormack, Baron, Salazar. However, during Thursday's meeting, Vice President Daniel Falcon Jr. indicated that each apartment would be assigned one parking spot.

That ratio, in particular, was of concern to Miguel Hernandez, owner of nearby Antigua Bread.

"My concern, during the construction, and after it's completed, is parking," said Miguel Hernandez, owner of Antigua Bread on 5703 North Figueroa St. "They have three bedroom units, with one parking spot. Where's everybody else going to park? If you multiply 80 units, by two cars, that's 160 parking spots being taken. So, I'm going to be losing customers."

Asked to address those concerns during an interview on Wednesday, Bernardy said that McCormack, Baron, Salazar was aware of the neighborhood's concerns about parking, and was primarily concerned with building the development to required codes.

"We follow building codes. The project we're building is affordable, and hopefully will steer folks to public transit. For sure, we would never be able to develop a  project that would meet everyone's desire when it comes to parking," Bernardy said. "One development will never solve a neighborhood's parking issue. We make sure we build it to code. We can also work with community and talk about ways we can mitigate that. It's always gonna be divisive."

The City of Los Angeles entered a joint development agreement with to build the Highland Park Transit Village. The project still has an "extensive entitlement package" that must be completed before it can be built, Bernardy said.