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Westwood parking petition gets 90-day hold

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The parking nightmare for some Westwood residents will continue for at least another three months following a 90-day petition hold imposed by two Rancho Bernardo community-elected groups.

The Rancho Bernardo Community Council voted 8-6 on June 23 in opposition to a resident-initiated request to limit parking on select impacted streets to two hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. At least 75 percent of the 122 homes support the petition — the only recourse the city has given the homeowners to fix a decade-long problem caused by the Waterbridge condo complex.

In a second vote, the council voted 13-1 to reconsider the petition in 90 days, a move that mirrors a Rancho Bernardo Planning Board decision on June 16.

Members of both groups said their goal is to give various stakeholders an opportunity to come up with another solution.

Some Waterbridge residents claim they knew nothing until recently about the overnight parking restriction petition despite extensive media coverage and discussions on Rancho Bernardo’s Nextdoor.com website about getting a restriction for the past year.

The same reasoning was presented by Westwood Townhomes 1 and 2 representatives, who said they just learned of the issue and fear if the restriction goes into effect the Waterbridge vehicles will move in front of their homes just past the restriction boundary.

Westwood Townhomes 1 HOA President Susan Van Winkle is leading a coalition of representatives from the townhomes, Waterbridge, petition proponents, RB Planning Board and RB Community Council. Their goal is to find a place to relocate the 100-plus Waterbridge vehicles from the Westwood streets, including Botero Drive, Oculto Road and a portion of Poblado Road between West Bernardo Drive and Capilla Road, inclusive of adjacent cul-de-sacs. Van Winkle can be reached at westwoodparkingsolutions@gmail.com.

Over the weekend she conducted an anonymous poll on Nextdoor to see how the 2,900 Westwood Club households felt about their club’s parking lot allowing Waterbridge vehicles overnight. The club’s board has repeatedly opposed such requests, for this and other groups, and supports the petition, according to club management. Of the 102 votes cast, 56 percent of self-identifing respondents claiming they are club members said “yes.” But many named Westwood residents opposed, writing their club should not be provide a solution for a problem Waterbridge developers created.

The West Bernardo Drive complex has existed since the 1970s, initially as apartments. Until converted into condos in the mid-2000s, long-time residents say there was never an overflow parking problem. Each unit had one assigned space and the remaining spots were a free-for-all, so there was sufficient available parking.

When converted, some condos were sold with two assigned parking spots, others had one. With around 15 visitor spots for the 386-unit complex, there is not enough unreserved spaces for Waterbridge vehicles within the complex, despite an estimated 140-150 open spots each evening, according to residents. Many said the problem was created by the parking allocation, which Waterbridge promised 10 years ago to fix if given a little more time.

Seeing no motivation for Waterbridge condo owners to impose an assessment upon themselves to increase their parking, fed-up Westwood residents decided to unite and force Waterbridge into fixing the problem by no longer having streets in front of their homes available as a free overflow Waterbridge parking lot.

They say it is a quality of life issue negatively impacting their property values since Waterbridge vehicles line up bumper-to-bumper in front of their homes. The result is no space for Westwood residents or guests to park, trash bins not getting emptied, vandalism and other negative behaviors occurring in front of their homes.

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