Rohnert Park council approves neighborhood parking permits

<p>Rohnert Park City Council members Tuesday night unanimously approved an ordinance allowing residents near Sonoma State University to require parking permits to discourage students from clogging neighborhood streets.</p><p>The ordinance, approved 4-0 with Councilwoman Pam Stafford absent, was sought mostly by residents who live in the city’s M Section near campus. </p><p>Some of those residents say motorists avoiding the $94 per semester on-campus parking fee overwhelm their streets with tightly parked vehicles, trash, noise and safety problems.</p><p>Police surveyed residents of the city’s R Section as well, but most opposed any parking restrictions, Sgt. Wulff Reinhold said.</p><p>Under the ordinance, parking permit areas could be set up if approved by 65 percent of a particular neighborhood. Reinhold said the city would require a minimum of 10 homes, and preferably an entire block, in any petition to the city.</p><p>If a neighborhood seeks the permits, its members would need to submit a proposal to the city and meet case-by-case requirements — such as dates and times parking would be prohibited — set by the City Council.</p><p>Fines would likely be at least $45 per violation, Reinhold said.</p><p>Neighborhoods creating a special parking area would be required to pay for their permits, likely $15 each. Residents could have between one and three permits per household.</p><p>Similar permit areas have been established at the Santa Rosa and Petaluma campuses of Santa Rosa Junior College, and around the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds in Petaluma and Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.</p><p>Monet Place resident Michelle Comerford said university officials should take responsibility for the problem.</p><p>“You’ve got to do something to help us out,” she said. “We’re tired of having to call the police all the time.”</p><p>Campus spokeswoman Missy Brunetta said the school has 5,300 parking spaces — more than enough to accommodate everyone wanting to park on campus — and that the school’s fees are among the lowest in the CSU system.</p><p>Councilman Joe Callinan suggested the no-parking zones may just push cars into other neighborhoods.</p><p>“Are they going to go another half a block? Of course they are,” he said.</p>