To: Scott Stiles, City Manager, Bao Nguyen, Mayor, Omar Sandoval, City Attorney, Kathy Bailor, City Clerk, and Lisa Kim, Community and Economic Development Director
Main Street's parking belongs to Main Street!
We are asking the city of Garden Grove to return the control of the land designated for downtown Main Street parking back to the Main Street Parking Commission or to the Main Street Commission. The city abolished the Main Street Parking Commission and gave the parking lot to the Housing Authority in 2013. The Housing Authority should not be in charge of the last area for the employees and customers on Main Street to park. This is out of their jurisdiction and they should not have the opportunity to make another deal with a developer to take it away.
Why is this important?
We recently witnessed the sale and leasing of several Housing Authority controlled properties in the Civic Center area, to a developer, with very little public input or consideration. In 2013 the Main Street Parking Commission was dissolved. The Housing Authority was granted control of the long standing west side parking lot for Main Street residents, shop owners, their employees and customers. The land had been previously controlled by a Parking Commission, that had maintained the lot before the city had incorporated. Our previous city leaders abolished the Parking Commission and handed the land over to the Housing Authority. The Garden Grove Housing Authority operates under federal grants received from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide rental subsidies to low-income families. There are no rental units in this parking lot, at least not yet. Not long ago, the city quietly offered the west side parking lot to developer Steve Sheldon, who wanted to create a condo complex on our last remaining parking lot for downtown. Luckily, concerned residents and merchants got together within the 72 hour notification and temporarily halted this conversion and sale. The Housing Authority is not intended to serve as a steward of land, as a real estate broker or as a holding area for properties until they decide to redevelop something. It is time for the city to either reinstate the Main Street Parking Commission or to give the parking lot to the Main Street Commission. If people have nowhere to park, they will not come to Main Street.