A Honolulu City Council bill would make permanent a program designed to give more street parking access to Oahu residents.
On Tuesday, Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and state Rep. John Mizuno (D, Kamehameha Heights-Kalihi Valley), who both represent the Kalihi Valley area, held a community meeting to discuss a proposal to establish a permanent restricted parking zone, or RPZ, program on Oahu.
The program essentially restricts street parking in certain neighborhoods to permitted residents or their visitors.
Dos Santos-Tam introduced Bill 20 on March 9 to make the RPZ program permanent, and the legislation has so far passed through the city’s lawmaking process without any real opposition.
Bill 20 has passed two of the necessary three City Council readings to become law, and in both readings the bill was passed unanimously.
The focus of the bill right now is the Kalihi Valley area, but it is structured so that it can be applied to different areas of the island where it might be necessary.
Lanikai, Diamond Head and Haleiwa were among some of the mentioned areas where the program might be useful.
“Kalihi’s not the only area that’s eventually going to get this,” Dos Santos-Tam said at Tuesday’s meeting. “This might help incentivize tourists to take other ways in — take an Uber, take the bus … rather than driving their own rental car there.”
The RPZ program was established on Oahu in 2019 after a successful 2017 pilot program in Kalihi Valley that became popular with residents whose parking stalls near or in front of their homes were constantly occupied.
The city reported that in the 2017 pilot program about 79% of the households within the RPZ received permits. Parking availability grew to 30% from 9% as well.
The city also said that nearly all surveyed residents supported extending the program.
Mizuno said city officials reported that many vehicles tied to nearby public housing were occupying the spaces.
“The area residents didn’t have adequate parking, and I’m not going to be negative, but many of the people that parked were from public housing,” Mizuno said at the meeting. “A lot of area residents would have to park their vehicles in front of their house, on the sidewalk or on the driveway. … Some of them were getting tickets.”
The RPZ program aims to provide adequate street parking for residents and to reduce traffic accidents and illegal activity such as dumping, theft, property damage, noise late at night and illegal drug use.
It currently gives the city Department of Transportation Services director the authority to designate zones, where necessary, as part of the program. Parking stalls in those zones can be used only by RPZ-permitted people.
Under the legislation’s current language, which would give the transportation director the ability to “establish, expand, reduce, or modify” the zones, a permitting system starting at $80 for annual permits would be established.
That base fee applies to residents of an RPZ and would be for the first vehicle tied to a residence. The permit cost for two vehicles would multiply the rate by 1.5; three vehicles would cost double the base rate; four would cost three times the base rate; and any additional vehicles would result in a permit that’s four times the base rate.
Visitors, defined in Bill 20 as people who are temporarily visiting or “temporarily having business” with residents eligible for an RPZ permit, could apply for an $80 annual visitor permit or a $10 single-day visitor permit.
Each eligible dwelling is limited to four annual residential permits and one annual visitor permit, according to the current language in the bill. The limit for single-day visitor permits hasn’t yet been established.
It also amends the transportation director’s criteria when considering RPZ changes, including the amount of on- and off-street parking, the availability of those parking stalls, how many of those vehicles belong to nonresidents and the amount of support a potential RPZ in that area has among residents.
Despite the apparent success of the program, so far there has been only one zone established for the program, according to the city’s RPZ website at bit.ly/42K5fYC. The zone provides on-street parking for residents on Jennie, Wilson and Alu streets in the Kalihi area.
The streets together form a large circular neighborhood that stems off of Likelike Highway.
There have been other temporary zones established, however, and they also appear to be in the Kalihi Valley area. Street parking in the area is often at or near capacity.
Right before Tuesday’s meeting, which took place at Kaewai Elementary School at around 5:30 p.m., parking was full at the school, along most of the street on Kamehameha IV Road near the school and in nearby neighborhoods.
While Mizuno tied the parking shortage to public housing, several residents said that the problem lies primarily with “monster” housing and illegal rentals in the area, including one house on Kilohi Street that a resident said is responsible for 19 vehicles parked on the street.
