Bolinas has long struggled to find a solution to the community’s parking challenges, which are especially acute in the summertime, when surfers and tourists inundate a village that has scarcely enough parking for its own residents.
A new solution—the latest of several efforts to ease parking problems—will be implemented as early as next month. It will impose new overnight parking restrictions for visitors and create West Marin’s first residential parking permit system.
The Board of Supervisors adopted a broad framework for the program in October, and last month, they approved the hours and locations where it will be implemented. The plan replaces Measure X, a three-year pilot program that posed enforcement challenges and did little to increase parking turnover.
No one expects that the new approach will be a panacea. Still, it should ease parking challenges for downtown residents while making beach parking somewhat more accessible for daytime visitors.
Visitor access is a high priority for the California Coastal Commission, which approved the proposed system last year, with the understanding that the number of permits would be limited.
“This is the culmination of a lot of work,” Bruce Bowser, chair of a Bolinas Community Public Utility District parking committee that recommended the change, told supervisors in January. “After four years of meetings and tireless efforts, we’re here.”
Under the new system, only residents with a permit will be allowed to park overnight on the residential side of Brighton Avenue. Visitors will be allowed to park overnight on the other side of the street, but only if their vehicle is no longer than 22 feet.
At all times of day or night, large vehicles will be prohibited from parking on Wharf Road south of the Bolinas Museum, where the road significantly narrows as it approaches the entrance to the beach.
While a handful of long-term residents in town live in vans and converted pickups, most of them have vehicles that do not exceed the 22-foot limit, according to Sherry Hirsch, a member of the parking committee, which has been working on the rules for four years.
“The newly approved county plan appears to thread the needle and is structured so that the ordinances are clear and enforceable, with a focus on portions of the downtown residential segments leading to the beach,” Ms. Hirsch said.
The program will be administered by the utility district, which is expected to begin issuing permits next month. Residents consulted closely with the Department of Public Works, coastal commission staff and the sheriff’s office in formulating the rules.
“This has been a multiyear effort,” said Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, who Mr. Bowser said once arrived late for a debate because he couldn’t find parking. “I have files that go back 15 or 16 years talking about parking in Bolinas. This is the second effort since I’ve been on the board to create some parking restrictions that work for both the community and visitors.”
In 2018, 52 percent of Bolinas residents approved Measure X. Unlike the new rules, it restricted parking in the entire downtown area, including the commercial stretch of Wharf Road. But enforcement officers hesitated to enforce the measure because it was vaguely worded and confusing. Moreover, the sheriff’s office lacks staffing to patrol the streets 24 hours a day, and county officials had concerns about criminalizing homelessness. As a result, visitors in camper vans frequently camped out for several days at a time on either side of Brighton Avenue without receiving citations. The situation deteriorated significantly during the pandemic, Mr. Bowser said.
“I’ve been here for 32 years, and I’ve seen the situation worsening over time,” he said. “Bolinas used to have a reputation that kept people from coming to visit, and that’s long since disappeared. Things radically changed during the pandemic, when so many people were not working and felt the only safe place to recreate was outdoors. We got visitation far beyond anything we ever had before.”
The situation has eased since then, but the challenges remain substantial.
Mr. Bowser lives on Brighton Avenue, where both sides of the road are routinely clogged with cars, vans and R.V.s, making it especially difficult for residents who lack off-street parking to find a spot.
“We were having more and more people show up in Winnebagos and the like and spending the night, if not several nights,” Mr. Bowser said. “We would have a whole group of them, circling the wagons and partying and whatnot. It became a general nuisance.”
Mr. Bowser has off-street parking, but because people sometimes block his driveway, he and his wife generally park on the street—provided they can find a space. He once became so irate when a white Tesla prevented him from getting out that he tagged the vehicle with toilet paper. On the advice of the sheriff’s deputy who came to ticket the car, Mr. Bowser quickly removed the adornment.
Both residents with and without permits will be required to move their vehicles at least 500 feet every 72 hours, according to rules that apply to all unincorporated areas of the county. The B.C.P.U.D. is ironing out details of the program with county officials, but residents on Brighton and the impacted sections of Wharf will receive at least two permits per household, said Belle Wood, the utility district’s assistant general manager.
Additional passes might be issued on a case-by-case basis, depending on household size. The passes are non-transferable, and visitor passes will not be issued.
“Hopefully this will help manage the residential parking down there,” Ms. Wood said. “This program is the first of its kind in our community, so it’s hard to say how it will ultimately bear out. But we’re hopeful that this will be an elegant solution.”
When Bolinas considered Measure X, some residents raised concerns about displacing long-term residents who lived in trucks or camper vans, and county officials said they were being careful not to tow vehicles that double as homes.
At the time, a Ninth Circuit court ruling was in place that prohibited criminalizing homelessness such as by ticketing and towing vehicles that serve as homes. But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enforcing camping regulations against homeless residents was not “cruel and unusual punishment,” and municipalities across the country have increased their enforcement of camping bans or passed new bans.
The Bolinas rules are not intended to target long-term visitors who live in their vehicles, Ms. Hirsch said, but rather surfers and tourists who remain for days at a time and sometimes party late into the night. “It’s aimed at the influx of visitors who have overwhelmed the town,” she said. “This is something for the people who are trying to sleep in their homes. That’s what it boils down to.”