After a two week hiatus, the Tustin City Council should be ready to tackle the second unit ordinance for Old Town Tustin this Tuesday. After extensive discussion by the councilmembers at the April 21st meeting, they voted to continue the item so that city staff could come up with answers to the chief complaint: parking.

Staff return this week with a second unit ordinance fortified by a recommendation for parking. Well, it’s not really a recommendation, just a copy of an existing policy on the adminstration of parking permit systems in Tustin. Mind you, there is no draft ordinance prepared for a potential permit system in Old Town and the city council may still have to consider the parking issue separately. I’m not sure that is what they wanted. One has to wonder why the delay in the second unit ordinance at all if they were just going to address the parking issue separately anyway.

The second unit ordinance proposal and the parking issue, as it turns out, are only vaguely related. Over the past year or so, parking has become a real problem in Old Town, particularly on the west side around Pacific and Main Street. Part of this is surely due to permit parking the city created a few years ago for the area around the condos on Main Street West of Pacific.

Driving along Pacific Avenue on any evening reveals a gauntlet of cars and trucks streching nearly to Main Street. While many of these may be attributed to the residents in the area, many of them, it turns out, are from either the previously mentioned condos or -as I’ve personally witnessed- from beyond the freeway overpass. There also appears to be a pattern with the number of out-of-area cars on our streets increasing toward the end of the week.

While I am not a proponent of permit parking on city streets (its that libertarian streak in me), it may be the only answer to the problem. In any case, parking should be addressed regardless of the second unit ordinance. The question then will become one of enforcement. Will the 2am to 6am cops want to travel the streets in search of errant parkers?

Lately, I have been questioning the validity of the second ordinance unit itself. As it turns out, there is no pressing need to make any changes. Although the city said in their presentation that affordable housing mandates are a factor, they really aren’t. Affordable housing requirements are for the city, not a specific area.

And, though the city also says that a 2002 Assembly Bill signed by Gray Davis requires the city to ministerially (say that three times real fast) consider second residential units, it does not require any changes be made to current ordinances. California Government Code 65852.8 states:

When a local agency receives its first application on or after July 1, 2003, for a permit pursuant to this subdivision, the application shall be considered ministerially without discretionary review or a hearing, notwithstanding Section 65901 or 65906 or any local ordinance regulating the issuance of variances or special use permits. Nothing in this paragraph may be construed to require a local government to adopt or amend an ordinance for the creation of second units.

So, from a legal standpoint, there is no mandate to change current law.

The biggest argument for change to an all second unit ordinance is the elimination of deed restrictions on proposed guest units. A few years ago, Elizabeth Binsack and Jerry Amante arbitrarily decided to place the requirement for deed restrictions on guest accessory units. This was in obvious retaliation for their defeat in the Fairbanks issue, a city-created debacle.

Since the proposal for the second unit ordinance was raised a few months ago, city staff have received more grief than praise. Parking has been just one of the issues raised by residents. Concern for density and a general degrading of the Old Town area have also been cited by home owners. Yet, Binsack amd her chief hatchet man Scott Reeskin, have used a variety of unsubsantiated arguments for enactment of the ordinance they appear to want so badly.

So, why the push for unneeded change? Surely, if deed restrictions are an issue, they can be done away with. And, since they are policy and not law, they only require a change in the mindset of city staffers.

In any case, residents have another opportunity to state their case for or against the ordinance. Judging from the city’s indifferent attitude toward opponents of the ordinance, I would suggest they turn out in force to state their case. Calls to councilmembers John Nielsen and Beckie Gomez may be the best bet toward swaying votes or, at least, extending further argument.

Other issues before the city council are pretty much routine. Aside from the usual business, the Consent Calendar is littered with requests to award contracts for various construction projects at city hall and parks.

The sole item for consideration under Reglar Business is an Amendment of Waste Disposal Agreement between the city and the county. Amon other things, the amendment will allow the county to continue to import wast from outside the county and to share the revenue generated with the city. It could be worth a cool $76,000 to the city.

In an unusual departure from the norm, due to a Water Management Workshop at 5:30 pm, the Closed Session has been moved to the end of Regular Business. With only a few items on the agenda, discussion of labor negotiations will likely take up the majority of the session.