Signs restricting vehicles over 7 feet tall from parking will go up along portions of Knowles Drive, Blossom Hill Road, Los Gatos Boulevard and University Avenue by the end of this month. This form of restricting parking has proven effective in other municipalities, including the city of Campbell, said members of the parks and public works department.

Owners of the semi-trucks and trailers are responsible for finding alternate locations to park. If the problem is transferred to other nearby streets, more restriction signs will go up.

"We don't have too many roads wide enough to accommodate this type of parking," said Kevin Rohani, the town's traffic engineer.

Employees along Knowles Drive began writing letters to the town in March, describing some of their near-misses as they've been forced to make blind turns onto the street while exiting parking lots because large vehicles parked along Knowles block their view of oncoming cars.

David Andris, manager of South Bay Development Company, suggested the town look into placing height restrictions on vehicles that can park along the street, restricting parking during normal work hours or extending red curbs to twice the current length of 100 feet.

"For us, the absolute best solution is to designate the whole thing as no parking," Andris said, adding that he is also in favor of the height restriction. When South Bay Development purchased the buildings between 110 and 180 Knowles Drive about two years ago, it paid close to $300,000 to increase the availability of on-site parking so employees would not have to park on the streets, he said.

The company isn't opposed to people parking their cars on the street in general unless vehicles are so large that they block the view for other drivers attempting to exit parking lots, Andris said.

Implementation of the height restriction also comes as welcome news to Bob Bixler, building committee chairman of the Unitarian Fellowship of Los Gatos on Blossom Hill Road.

Since October, Bixler has had to put up with one neighbor parking his trailer and pick-up truck in front of the church, which blocked the view of the church and made it difficult for visitors to find the building.

Bixler called the height restriction "far and away the best solution" and much more effective than the 72-hour parking limit.

Existing town codes stipulate that a vehicle cannot park on a public street for 72 hours without moving at least one-half mile during that period.

Upon receiving a report that a car has not moved for some time, a law enforcement officer still has to go out to the site and place a notice on the vehicle informing the owner the automobile must be moved within 72 hours. Only after that time will the owner be ticketed if the vehicle has remained in place, Bixler said. If the owner moves the vehicle one-half mile then returns, he or she can park at the same location for another 72 hours, he said.

"It's really a useless law for the kind of situation we have," Bixler said.

In addition to reports from people who work along Knowles Drive and Blossom Hill Road about these large vehicles, the town has heard similar accounts from merchants on Los Gatos Boulevard and from a resident regarding Pollard Road.

"We looked at it. We don't feel that that is a problem area," Rohani said of Pollard Road.

While the latest set of reports only came to the town over the last few months, the problem has persisted for some time.

"We've had calls on this for a number of years," said town parking coordinator Carol Musser.

To address this issue, the Los Gatos­Monte Sereno Police Department recently established a 24-hour hotline for residents to report abandoned vehicles left on public streets. The number to call is 408.399.5767.