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Politics & Government

G&L Realty Seeks to Make City's Two-Hour Free Parking Permanent

Vice Mayor Barry Brucker argues that the City Council has no plans to eliminate the city's free two-hour parking.

Beverly Hills is known for, among other things, its luxury retail shops, upscale restaurants and a high number of medical offices. It's also one of the few places that offer two-hour free parking at its city-owned parking structures.

On Aug. 14, G&L Realty of Beverly Hills began collecting signatures to put an initiative on the March 2011 ballot that would permanently preserve free two-hour parking in city-owned parking lots. The company, which owns five medical buildings on Bedford and Roxbury drives totaling 260,916 square feet, has until Sept. 14 to collect the 2,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

Harvey Englander, a Beverly Hills resident and consultant to G&L Realty, told Patch he was "confident" the company would turn in enough valid signatures by the deadline to have the measure placed on next year's ballot.

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"There has been a great deal of uncertainty over what the city is doing with their parking garages," said Englander, managing partner at government relations consultancy Englander Knabe Allen & Associates. "We have to remain competitive with Century City, Santa Monica and West Hollywood with two-hour free parking."

The Century City Westfield mall and the Santa Monica Place both offer two to three hours of free parking. Englander said after discussing the issue with more than 140 tenants, some of them in G&L-owned buildings and others independent retailers, the company decided to "step up" and bring some certainty to the issue.

Find out what's happening in Beverly Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But Vice Mayor Barry Brucker described the ballot initiative as the "ultimate in self-serving greed on the part of a medical building owner." Brucker told Patch that G&L provides parking in its buildings at a cost of $15.20 for two hours and markets the city's two-hour free parking in its promotional materials.

"The taxpayers and residents would have to support this," Brucker said. "Anyone who understands my opinion understands that this is pure arrogance and greed and should be offended by their efforts to take this decision away from the council."

Cutting two-hour free parking is not on the City Council's agenda, he stressed. Brucker said he had talked with residents and business owners who "recognize that this is not good for the city."

If approved by voters, the initiative would affect only traditional two-hour parking lots, not the city's meters or monthly parking.

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