Last week, we looked into the Employee Parking Management Program (EPMP) and how it helps manage parking issues throughout town. This week, we will look at some of the other measures that the Town of Yountville has taken to mitigate parking issues and what happens when a business does not follow the rules.
First things first: where is there public parking in Yountville? We have become used to seeing empty streets and plenty of parking during the pandemic, but before March 2020, finding a parking spot on a Friday or Saturday could be difficult. Many homeowners could be upset about a car parking in front of their house. Yountville currently has several public parking options. Southern Washington Street (south of Hopper Creek) and the southern section of Yount Street have parallel street parking with no time limit, except for in front of the Yountville Chamber of Commerce and the post office. There is pull-in public parking in Northern Yountville (NoYo) in front of Jessup Cellars and Southside Cafe. The parking in this area has recently changed to posted three-hour parking to encourage visitor parking and access to the businesses. There is new public parking on the West side of the Yountville Community Park on Washington Street.
In addition to the actual public parking, Yountville has several other places that visitors can park. The Yountville Community Center has a large parking lot behind it that turns into public parking on the weekends. There is also a parking lot at Town Hall that can be used for public parking when Town Hall is closed. In addition to all this parking, most businesses also offer parking for their guests. Parking lots exist behind Priest Ranch, Handwritten, Jessup Cellars, Southside Cafe, not to mention the large parking lot that serves visitors to Washington Square.
There are ample parking lots on either side of The Shops at V Marketplace owned by The Estate, and the spaces that front Washington St. In fact, this is private property. It appears to be a wide-open public parking space but is private parking. In 2019 The Estates attempted to charge for parking at the lot, which was short-lived and proved to be a confusing venture.
In 2019 the issue of parking was taken up by the Town Council, and they implemented several new measures to help with parking issues. Several new spots were created in front of Ciccio’s and given 3 hour time limits. New parking added at Van de Leur Park created additional spaces, and limos are restricted from parking in the Town’s residential areas. The Council was also given leeway to determine parking requirements, up or down, based on a specific business and its use,
Parking once again made local news in 2020 when a major EPMP violation played its way through the Town process and ended up before theTown Council. RH Yountville hired more employees and had more employees onsite than was allowed in their Use Permit. Those extra employees could not park in the designated parking spots for RH and therefore were parking in residential neighborhoods. The solution to this problem came from working with the Town to determine how the business, visitors, and residents could coexist. In the end, RH paid to put in the new public and employee parking and on the west side of Yountville Community Park. This project came with opposition; however, now that the project is completed, residents understand that it was a win-win for everyone. Even a recent Letter to the Editor in the Yountville Sun said they were comfortable with the project.
So with all this parking, does Yountville have a parking problem, or do we simply feel like we do? Where does the burden of parking fall? How can residents and businesses help to be part of the solution?
If you ask residents, we still have a parking problem.
Read the 2019 Staff Report for Parking Improvements, and Parking Workshop