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Employees, residents and students in the E. Main Street district will soon be subject to new parking limitations, as the area is the town's first attempt at a zoned approach to parking.
The "olive zone"—which includes Los Gatos High School and the Los Gatos Civic Center—will be in place by the beginning of next month.
The first of six zones, the olive zone limits parking on public streets to 90 minutes on weekdays. A parking lot at the corner of Main and Alpine Avenue will become two-hour parking only, and Bella Vista Avenue and Jackson Street will have residential permit parking.
Vehicles with residential or employee permits, however, will be able to park in specified spaces for an unlimited amount of time.
Los Gatos High School students will also be impacted, as campus construction has pushed student drivers out of the school's parking lot. As a result, the town is allowing high school permit parking on High School Court and on Main, in front of the school, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. The permits can only be obtained through Los Gatos High.
With the zoned approach to parking, a vehicle must be moved to an entirely different zone once time is up and can only remain in the area after the restricted hours. In the case of the olive zone, those hours are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
According to Los Gatos Parking Coordinator Carol Musser, the Los GatosMonte Sereno Police Department started selling the employee permits this week. Those permits are only for spaces in the olive zone and can only be sold to employees that work within the zone who can show a town-issued business license.
Employee permits are $200 annually and $25 monthly; residential permits are $25 annually per vehicle.
Musser says town staff members have been surveying the affected streets in the past weeks, determining where the new parking signs will go. All of the signposts will be replaced and some moved because they are behind bushes or not immediately visible to drivers. "We want to put them where they're not obstructing someone's vision," Musser said.
Installation will begin before the end of next week and be completed shortly so as not to interfere with the holiday shopping season. On Nov. 29, the downtown valet parking program begins, to provide better parking for shoppers. Valet parking ends Dec. 24.
Information about the olive zone and applications for employee and residential permits are available at the police department. For more information, contact Musser at 408.399.5716.
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