The City Council Transportation Committee honors LADOT employees at a routine meeting Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015, in Los Angeles, California. A lack of a quorum threatened to postpone a decision moving the parking ordinance to general council. (Neon Tommy/Giovanni Moujaes).

The meeting, originally scheduled for 2 p.m., was delayed one hour until a quorum of councilmen could be met. Paul Krekorian, Tom Lebonge and Mike Bonin—Bernard Parks and Paul Koretz were not present—voted to move the ordinance to the general council meeting this Friday.

The proposal was put forth after the parking app company, Monkey Parking, attempted to operate in the City of Santa Monica and Beverly Hills in October 2014. In the same month, Councilman Mike Bonin led a motion to outlaw the app in the City of Los Angeles. 

The new ordinance prevents any other companies and operations similar to Monkey Parking from establishing business within city limits.

“We’ve criminalized the behavior because it really is stealing,” said Michael Nagle, city attorney liaison for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. “We have the toughest law in the country right now.” 

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Monkey Parking, an app based in Italy, allows users to turn their driveways into metered parking spots. An individual with the app looking for an open spot can pay the owner of the driveway a flat rate to park his or her vehicle for a set duration of time. 

The problem: the app does not enforce what users consider “driveways,” which prompted much of the controversy in America. So, an individual who is leaving a street parking space can inform others and cede the spot for money through Monkey Parking.

“Using city resources by a private entity to profit off of public property, it’s just not feasible,” Nagle said. “We couldn’t let that happen here.”

In Boston, parking apps such as Monkey Parking were outlawed in 2014 after government officials recognized potential problems with the app. 

The city’s low public parking rates have caused an influx of automobiles in commercial and residential areas, forcing motorists to drive around blocks several times or use parking apps to save time—and money, in comparison to private parking lots. 

“Most communities always want more parking, particularly where it is cheap,” said Lisa Jacobson, a transportation planner for the Boston division of Nelson Nygaard Consulting. “The apps are showing people that the conventional ways cities manage parking are typically outdated and not appropriate for 2015.”

If used legally, Monkey Parking can turn an empty church lot into a parking space for commuters during the week, effectively freeing up city streets for short-term use.

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“In this respect, the parking apps are doing a great thing. They are bringing more private supply into the public market,” Jacobson said. “With that said, however, you should not be taking a public good and selling it on the private market.”

Other cities such as San Francisco chose to reinvent their parking systems as a result of the growing app industry. The “SFpark” pilot program encompassed 7,000 metered spaces, or about 25 percent of the city’s total amount. SFpark used demand-responsive pricing that helped the city improve parking availability, lower average parking rates and decrease greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2014.

“Municipalities have the entire supply of parking to deal with, and whatever changes they make affect all users,” said Gordon Hansen, a Nelson Nygaard transportation planner involved in Bay Area projects. “The real challenge for entrepreneurs is how many people are going to opt in to their program. This is another reason that apps like Monkey Parking haven’t worked so well.”  

Monkey Parking, and two similar apps, were issued cease-and-desist orders by San Francisco’s city attorney in June 2014, effectively prohibiting much of their operations in the city. This is one reason the company recently tried to expand into new Southern California metropolitan markets.

Not everyone, however, thinks the solution to the parking pandemic resides solely with private or public entities. Ronald Tomcek, former chairman of the Linda Vista Planning Committee in San Diego, said that a balance between the two sides could greatly improve the situation on all fronts.

“If larger cities took a percentage of parking app profit, they could then use the funds, in addition to taxpayer dollars, to repair the surrounding streets or work on providing better public transportation,” he said.

The Los Angeles City Council will vote on the new ordinance Friday, which then will be subject to approval by Mayor Eric Garcetti.   

Reach staff reporter Giovanni Moujaes here. Follow him on Twitter here.