Encinitas council removes 20‑minute cap on green‑curb parking, approves 3‑hour pilot on Paseo De Las Verdes

Encinitas city traffic staff told the council the city’s municipal code currently limits green‑curb time limits to 20 minutes and requires council sign‑off for most curb‑painting actions. Abe Bandigan, city traffic engineer, said the proposed update would remove the 20‑minute restriction and add a new section (14.40.130) to clarify how time‑limited parking is evaluated and implemented by staff.

Bandigan said the change was prompted by requests from business owners for more flexible, locally managed parking controls: "Our proposal is to remove this 20‑minute restriction from the code, and just add, to the duration indicated on the time‑limited parking or on the curb," he told the council.

During the public hearing, residents raised questions about notice and the scope of the engineer’s authority, particularly for residential streets. Encinitas residents urged a clear notification radius so neighbors are informed when timed parking is proposed adjacent to their property. Staff acknowledged outreach gaps and agreed to add a notice step — a 300‑foot radius mailer was suggested — to the implementation policy.

Councilmembers debated whether to approve specific curb changes tonight or return the entire code rewrite to the Mobility & Traffic Safety Commission (MTSC) for review. The council split the item: it directed staff to implement a 3‑hour green‑curb time limit on the segment of Paseo De Las Verdes shown in the staff materials and remanded the code changes and the notification procedure to the MTSC for codification. The motion carried unanimously.

The council’s action allows the traffic engineer to apply time‑limited parking in more locations without seeking council approval for each instance, but it requires staff to adopt a standard public‑notice step and to present the revised implementation policy for MTSC consideration before final codification.