Showing posts with label parking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parking. Show all posts

Saturday, May 1, 2021

Stop the privatization of public beaches in #HollywoodFL. Get involved and vocal on May 5th and let the Hollywood City Commission know that you want Public Beach Access properly maintained, NOT weakened! Hollywood residents, please oppose Wednesday's agenda item #24. Ocean/beach access is for everyone, including sunrise and sunset.

Stop the privatization of public beaches in #HollywoodFL. Get involved and vocal on May 5th and let the Hollywood City Commission know that you want Public Beach Access properly maintained, NOT weakened!
Hollywood residents, please oppose Wednesday's agenda item #24. 
Ocean/beach access is for everyone, including sunrise and sunset.

Photo of Hollywood City Hall by me, March 2021



https://t.co/l6ht9n2Sxh?amp=1


Reminder: This Washington Post article is almost 4 years old.

The Washington Post

Free the beaches, before it’s too late
America's beaches are for everyone. Let's keep them that way.
By Andrew W. Kahrl
August 3, 2017 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Andrew W. Kahrl is associate professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and author of “The Land Was Ours: How Black Beaches Became White Wealth in the Coastal South.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/03/free-the-beaches-before-its-too-late/


So here's the information on Agenda Item #24 for Wednesday's Hollywood City Commission: 

An Ordinance Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Amending Chapter 72 Of The Code Of Ordinances Entitled "Parking" To Revise The Parking Permit Program And Update Other Provisions; Providing For A Repealer Provision And A Severability Clause.
https://hollywoodfl.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4928396&GUID=6DB1CDE0-0ED5-4395-A27D-B00FCF8B1D4D&Options=&Search=

Below are the three most recent updates on the street parking situation on Hollywood Beach written by my friend and fellow Hollywood civic activist, Catherine "Cat" Uden:



The city is justifying the “Beach Residential Zones” as elderly residents on fixed incomes with disabled spouses having nowhere to park at night. If elderly residents need more parking, then the city should find a way to do that. But, that's not what this is. 

The ordinance says nothing about elderly or disabled people. The ordinance allows ANY condo resident to apply for more spots. Not only can they apply for more spots for themselves, but I think the ordinance states they can ALSO apply for special guest permits so that their guests can have special beach parking.
That is basically privatizing the beach and stealing good street parking from the rest of the Hollywood residents.

In addition, it seems the city won’t have to give the public any warning or allow us to make public comments on zones being created. 
They will just take away our sunrise/sunset parking, and that’s that.
This ordinance passed on first reading, and I’m hoping there’s a second reading where the public can make comments.


For those who enjoy Hollywood Beach- Please make a public comment by the deadline today 4/20. 
🌟Agenda item 14 is Citizen Comments. 

🌟The city plans to take away half of certain streets and turn them into zones for barrier island residents and their guests only from 6 pm until 8 am. No other Hollywood residents or members of the public would be able to park there. 
It’s possible that they could even leave their cars in those zones all day if they purchase another permit. It’s also possible they will be given this special parking even if they already have 2 spots per condo unit. 
The city could create these zones without any warning to the public and we would not get an opportunity or weigh in. 
The privileged who live at the beach could apply for up to 4 permits and 2 for their guests. Residents like me who have paid for a $160 annual sticker would be shut out of these zones.
Please oppose the “Beach Residential Only” parking zones. 
The beach is for all, we all paid for the sand, and they should not be taking away public access or public parking.

http://fl-hollywood2.civicplus.com/FormCenter/City-Clerk-12/2Regular-City-Commission-Meeting-Public--230

You can also choose to speak in person at 5 pm on 4/21 at city hall, agenda item 14.
Check out the @surfriderbroward Facebook event page for more details. 
The final vote is May 5th.
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Save our sunrise and sunset parking. Ask the @cityofhollywoodfl to oppose “Beach resident only” parking zones - agenda item 24. 
If this ordinance passes, even Hollywood residents with an annual resident sticker will be excluded from these zones for 14 plus hours every single day. (6 pm until 8 am). 
Beach residents who are already provided spots by their building could also apply for these zones and might get multiple permits and also guest permits. 👎🏾 Save our public street parking. 

May 5th city meeting. 
Make a public comment opposing Agenda item 24 here: Hollywoodfl.org 

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REMINDER: For your comment to be read aloud at the Wednesday meeting it must be received BEFORE 6 p.m. on Tuesday the 4th.


Submit a Public Comment:

  • Any member of the public wishing to comment publicly on any matter, including specific agenda items and/or Citizens Comments may do so via the City’s website at the links below or via telephone. 
  • Comments are limited to 400 words and/or 3 minute spoken maximum.
  • Staff will read the comments into the record during the meeting. All comments received during the submission period will become part of the public record.
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For those of you who are new to this blog, I first wrote about Catherine "Cat" Uden in early 2019

The last time I mentioned Cat here on the blog, in June of last year, came in conjunction with  another matter, namely...
Hollywood residents deserve better than this completely inadequate effort at public engagement on big spending issues, via Hollywood General Obligation Bond Advisory Committee
I received roughly 3,000 views from concerned residents and stakeholders, receiving quite a few comments about how spot-on my comments were, and all wondering when the city was going to loosen things at Hollywood City Hall that prevents more of the public from actively participating, including opening up public Civic Association meetings again.

Just something to consider...

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Monday, September 30, 2019

#HollywoodFL updates re Public Parking @ Hollywood Beach; possible walking police patrols in Downtown Hollywood from Friday thru Sunday nights; news re the University Station redevelopment; Have a feeling all of these issues will come up Tuesday night at Comm. Peter Hernandez's 6:30 pm Town Hall mtg at the Lippman Center

#HollywoodFL re Public parking @ Hollywood Beach, possible walking police patrols in Downtown Hollywood from Friday thru Sunday nights, news re the University Station redevelopment...
Have a feeling all of these issues will come up Tuesday night at Comm. Peter Hernandez's 6:30 pm Town Hall mtg at the Lippman Center

First, from city's press release:
District 2 Town Hall Meeting
Tuesday, October 1
District 2 Commissioner Peter Hernandez is hosting a Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, October 1 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center at 2030 Polk Street in Hollywood. 
Find out about septic to sewer conversion and water infrastructure replacement in the Royal Poinciana area. There will also be information about downtown security (roving patrols) and low to moderate income availability of city funds. Refreshments will be provided. 
For more information, contact Commissioner Hernandez at 954.247.7136 or the Office of the 
Mayor and Commissioners at 954.921.3321  

The unmentioned good news in that press release is that my friend Claude Luciani, stalwart Hollywood animal supporter and owner of Pizza Rustica in Downtown Hollywood, located opposite two of the most popular places in all of Hollywood -and I'm happy to say, advertisers on my blog!- The Greek Joint and Mickey Byrne's Irish Pub & Restaurant, will be bringing examples of his oh-so delicious pizza 🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 at the meeting, so be sure to bring your pizza taste buds.
But leave plenty for me, as I love Claude's pizza! 🍕
1. re Public parking @ Hollywood Beach.

The issues at stake here are self-evident but please read the full thread. 




2. re possibility of evening walking police patrols in Downtown Hollywood.

First my tweets and then some discussion of perceived safety problems and a possible solution.

As most of you know, over the course of a typical month, I go to all kinds of public meetings at Hollywood City Hall, as well as to numerous Civic Association meetings being held throughout the city, so I can keep tabs on the evolving concerns of the city's residents and Small Business owners.
But I also spend a lot of time during the week in Downtown Hollywood in the afternoons and evenings -and not just on weekends- talking to individual owners and managers of restaurants, bars, retail shops, boutiques as well as office buildings about their concerns about Hollywood in general and the Downtown area in particular.
People who, despite having lenty of choices to do so elsewhere, have personally decided to invest themselves emotionally and financially in Hollywood's Downtown area, and want it to be much better, safer and more-interesting than it currently is or has been in the past.

 They are long past tired of hearing excuses, alibis and unkept promises to "fix things."
Simply put, they are also not buying the popular perception hereabouts that you really can't force the City of Hollywood or the Hollywood CRA or Broward County or FDOT to acknowledge, recognize and actually resolve problems with anything under some six-month projection.

 Over the past few years, but most especially the past year, both during the 9-10 months while I was out-of-town, and then after I returned to Hollywood in late April, these same stakeholders who are invested in so many ways in this city's success, have expressed themselves to me in increasingly angry and ominous tones about what they feel is going on now.
They are particularly upset about how this past summer's business seemed especially dead, with few events going on in the city that would attract genuine crowds of visitors and consumers to the larger area as a whole, not just to the immediate area around Young Circle.

 So, despite some positive developments over the past year, including the introduction of some new businesses and eager faces, like my talented photography friend, Noël de Christián, who opened up an amazing gallery bearing his name a few months ago on the west side of S. 20th Avenue, and my friend John Wiltsey, who last month opened up his Camp Cocktail Bar + Grill on the corner of  N. 21st Avenue and Hollywood Blvd., many Downtown stakeholders feel like there is a palpable sense of complacency among the local powers-that-be that can simply not be allowed to continue moving forward.
Some dynamic changes in attitude and behavior are needed lest these ingrained public perceptions among Hollywood and regional residents go unchallenged and continue to grow.

 To these stakeholders, there's a very strong public perception among both Hollywood residents as well as from nearby cities, that too many parts of the Downtown area are not as safe as they
should be. And perception IS reality, whatever the actual Hollywood criminal statistics may say.

 To be honest, I've personally been stopped DOZENS of times over the past six months by either Hollywood residents or visitors/tourists who did not understand why there were seemingly uniformed Hollywood Police officers in the Downtown area every night who seemed to always congregate on Hollywood Blvd. -and take up too much space there- yet who never venture more than ten feet away from their patrol cars.
To paraphrase, "Why don't they stop leaning on those damn cars and actually walk around and
see what's going on and stop trouble before it happens?"

I've explained every time, often until I simply can't repeat myself again, that in most cases, these police officers were/are "off-duty," and there because they are detailed to a specific business that 
is paying for that, and thus, not "on-duty," per se.
As you might imagine, though true, this response of mine tends not to either placate or delight 
most people.
They just shake their heads and say that they visit plenty of other cities in South Florida and the 
rest of the state where they see walking police patrols at night and why can't that happen here 
in Hollywood.

Just so you know, over the past few years, an increasing number of the successful people I know 
who live in the Hollywood Lakes area have felt emboldened to tell me that they personally feel like 
they are safer and have more choices of things to do if they go to Aventura, Sunny Isles, Bal Harbour 
or up to certain Fort Lauderdale-area neighborhoods.
They tell me they wish they were spending that money in Hollywood, but that their perception is 
what it is, and until they see some kind of tangible sign that the city and the CRA are changing it, 
why should they alter their behavior and go there with their spouses or families?

I should mention that women seem to find the current reality even more ridiculous than men, 
which given where the city's two public parking garages are located, in not-always bustling areas 
at night, perhaps explains itself.

"David, do they even have operating cameras in the public parking garages?"
People consistently tell me the answer is NO, so perhaps that is something simple that 
the city and CRA should explore changing, since many woman I've spoken to feel the 
public garages are just as likely a site with potential for harm for themselves and their 
guests as any other spot in the Downtown area. That perception must change.

Towards that end, over the past few months, District 2 Commissioner Peter Hernandez and many Downtown business owners have been calling for the city to institute nighttime walking patrols in the Downtown area to assuage people's reasonable beliefs and directly change those self-evident public perceptions about public safety.
Last week at the CRA HQ on Harrison Street, I was one of about two dozen interested parties at the latest meeting Comm. Hernandez has held since June with downtown business owners about their concerns. CRA Executive Director Jorge Camejo was also there as he was at previous meetings, along with a few reps from the Hollywood Police Dept..

The possibility of having these nighttime walking patrols, at least on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 
nights, was broached once again.
I think there's a reasonable possibility that the CRA may be willing to put some money forward to help pay for those costs, but it will not happen unless the public wants it and expresses themselves to the people who will actually be deciding the matter, that is, the seven members of the Hollywood City Commission/CRA Board of Directors.

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3. news re University Station redevelopment



Redevelopment Opportunity University Station

Univ Station redev opp

Hollywood Accepting Proposals for the Redevelopment of University Station Site

The City of Hollywood, Florida, received an unsolicited proposal submitted under the provisions of Section 255.065, Florida Statutes, Public-Private Partnerships, for “University Station” to finance, develop, construct and manage an urban, mixed-use project on approximately 2.5 acres of City-owned real estate in Downtown Hollywood. The City-owned site is located along a major north/south corridor known as the Dixie Highway/Florida East Coast Railway Corridor, between Fillmore, Taylor, and Polk Streets, and adjacent to N. 21st Avenue (“Site”). The Site currently houses the City of Hollywood’s Shuffleboard Center and Courts, a public parking/DocumentCenter/View/16458/University_Station_Barry_University_Lease lot and a repurposed former fire station that is leased to Barry University College of Nursing & Health Sciences. The Site is also located within the Downtown District of the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency.
The City has published the required legal notice of the acceptance of an unsolicited proposal under the provision of 255.065 and is willing to accept other proposals to finance, develop, construct and manage an urban, mixed-use project on this property. Competitive proposals should be for an innovative, mixed-use, market-driven concept that takes full advantage of the Site. The City has determined the unsolicited proposal is sufficient for consideration on a preliminary basis and will accept other proposals for the same project during this notification period. No final decision has been made relative to selecting any proposal for this site.



Last Tuesday, September 24th, from just before 3 pm until about 5:15, I was at Hollywood City Hall in Room 421, up on the locked floor, for the City of Hollywood's Evaluation Committee meeting re the P3/University Station redevelopment project that both Pinnacle Housing Group and Housing Trust Group, LLC want.

The public notice was only put up before 3 pm the day before, after I had already been at City Hall around lunch time. To be honest, I was very suspicious that something fishy was happening, since for just barely 24 hours to lapse between an announcement and an actual meeting is very unusual in Hollywood, though was not so uncommon in Hallandale Beach during the lamentable reign of Joy Cooper, with the goal of keeping the public out of the room and in the dark. :-(

Public perception-wise, it seemed to me to be an especially bad move, too, especially for such an important project that has the potential to help positively transform the Downtown Hollywood corridor area from the FEC train tracks going back east to US-1, as was so often
repeated at the meeting itself.
I was the first person in the meeting room not on the Eval Comm. or with a business interest in it, though there was one person there already monitoring it on behalf of one party's attorney.

Right before the meeting started, literally, while outside the door and standing next to the window that offers an interesting aerial view of the immediate area to the east, I called my friend, North Central Civic Association president Patricia "Patty" Antrican, who has talked to
me about this project for many months, and asked her to come by if she could, though I knew she'd likely still be busy because North Central was having its monthly meeting that night, and I assumed Patty was still trying to add some public speakers to the agenda for her typically large crowd of very concerned residents and business owners to hear over at the Lippman Center later.
Fortunately, she was able to get over there pretty quick and caught most of the Eval. Comm.'s discussions and points about what they thought about the two parties eager to control that property with so much potential for being a dynamic force in the city.

Patty and I, as well as anybody paying close attention, knows that the tract under discussion there, offers lots of interesting possibilities, and a chance to reshape those public perceptions about what was and is possible in Hollywood, especially if there's a train station nearby that allows residents to easily go points north and south on the FEC tracks towards Downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

As regular readers of my 12-year old blog know, I've attended dozens of transportation meetings over the years, most though not all about the proposed Tri-Rail Coastal line that is my preferred choice because it services the largest number of people and accomplished a VERY POSITIVE public policy goal -mobility. Increased ease of travel

I am not at all sold on the idea of having that location be a Virgin Train stop for the train north to Fort Lauderdale, West Paln Beach and eventually, Orlando, and south to Miami, since tickets would be so much more expensive and draw a fraction of the public of what those well-located tracks will bear.

I took about 9 pages of copious notes about what was said, and will soon post some of them to the blog about it in depth.
But for now, it was clear to me that the two most important of several concerns expressed were:
1.) Whether the two groups were prepared to be a key and vocal part of the referendun process if they are selected and get it thru a purchase instead of a lease, as they would prefer, and,
2.) What would Pinnacle's level of interest in constructing the market rate building component of the project still exit if they did not get the available tax credits within two years?

I reconfirmed this afternoon with Hollywood Procurement Dept. Director Paul Bassar that the Oral Evaluations for Pinnacle and HTG will be next Monday, October 7th, at Hollywood City Hall in Room 215, starting at 1:30 p.m. and likely ending about 4:30 pm or so.
I strongly suggest you bring some caffeine and something to munch on!


ICYMI: My last blog post was this!
Can development and historic Downtown #HollywoodFL co-exist? Current public pushback against possible demolition of a historic Hollywood Bank Bldg. to make way for the Soleste
Hollywood project, makes one wonder whether it can or not 

 Dave
David B. Smith

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Friday, March 31, 2017

New Hollywood Beach Parking Rates Go Into Effect on Monday May 1st; #HollywoodBeachFL, #BrowardCounty




Coming next week: My fact-filled blog post titled with the latest about Hollywood Beach parking and the quest for new parking garages or a better way of managing the number of cars on the beach - "#HollywoodBeachFL Quality of Life vs. Economics: New solutions for an old problem - public parking. Finding just the right balance between the goals of tweaking the city's economic engine -tourism- to give tourists a positive experience and keep them coming back, and Hollywood Beach residents' desire to maintain their Quality of Life."

Recent press release issued by the City of Hollywood,
http://www.hollywoodfl.org/list.aspx?MID=765

 New Beach Parking Rates Go Into Effect May 1st
Register Now to Get the Resident Rate

To keep beach parking affordable for Hollywood residents, the City is offering a resident parking rate. Residents must register their vehicle(s) annually with the Parking Division to enjoy an hourly parking rate of $1.50 per hour Monday through Thursday and $2.00 per hour Friday through Sunday and on holidays. This rate is 50% less than the new non-resident rate of $3.00 per hour Monday through Thursday and $4.00 per hour Friday through Sunday and on holidays. The new non-resident parking rates will go into effect May 1, 2017.

Once registered, you will be given a “resident rate code” for use at City-operated multi-space master meter parking spots. Registration is free and can be done in-person or online.  The following documents are required to register:
• Driver’s license
• Vehicle registration
• One of the following: lease agreement, utility bill, voter ID card or tax bill with current Hollywood address
To Register online: Upload scanned images or photos of the required documents to the Parking Portal and select “Get Permits.”

To Register in-person: Bring copies of the required documents to the Parking office located at 2600 Hollywood Boulevard in the City Hall West Annex Building.

Using the Parkmobile Application
Once you have your resident rate code, you will need to register your vehicle with Parkmobile to receive the resident parkingrate. You can sign up for Parkmobile by visiting http://us.parkmobile.com/ or by calling the toll-free number 877.727.5714. You must register with the City of Hollywood in order to receive the resident rate through Parkmobile.

If you are already a Parkmobile user, you still will need to register your vehicle(s) with the City to automatically receive the City of Hollywood resident rate when you use the Parkmobile App. Be sure to use the same phone number when you register.

Additional Information
• Please allow up to 24 hours/next business day for resident rate processing and up to 20 days for Parkmobile processing.
• At single-space parking meters, the resident rate can only be applied when using the Parkmobile Application.
• Resident rate code is not valid in private garages, lots or meters

Don’t wait to get your resident rate code!  Log on today or stop by the Parking Office. Parking on Hollywood beach.

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Dave 


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