When the city of Los Angeles cleared a massive recreational vehicle homeless encampment along Forest Lawn Drive in the Hollywood Hills area in December, local business owner Nancy Sexton was thrilled to see the RVs finally gone.
But soon after, her elation turned to disappointment as she discovered that, along with getting rid of the RVs, the city without notice banned parking along part of Forest Lawn Drive by painting the curb red.
“We’re really grateful that (the city) cleaned up the RVs, but (they’re) screwing me in the process,” she said.
Sexton owns The Muse Rooms, which offers co-working spaces, at the corner of Barham Boulevard and Forest Lawn Drive near Universal Studios. While there’s a parking garage onsite, her members often parked on the street to avoid the $12 daily garage fee.
Peter Wacks is a member of The Muse Rooms. Since street parking was cut back by the city, he’s been paying out-of-pocket for some of his teammates to park in the onsite garage — a pricey $5,000 added expense this year, he estimates.
“We’re a startup (company), so we survive off of what I dig out of savings and small investments,” Wacks said.
There is still some parking on Forest Lawn Drive, but many of those spaces are limited to two hours of parking or less. Before much of that street became off-limits to parking, Sexton said, there were more spots where people could park all day without worrying about moving their cars every couple of hours.
The changes have hurt her business.
It’s been “incredibly frustrating” to hear her members, or prospective members who tour her facility, tell her they love the space she offers — but have decided to go elsewhere because of the lack of free parking nearby, Sexton said.
Before signing a 10-year lease, Sexton said, she looked into the parking situation and found it adequate for her clientele. She has eight years left on her lease.
Stella Stahl, spokesperson for L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents the Hollywood Hills area, said the city’s fire department sought to make part of the road off-limits to parking because nearby brush put the area at high risk of a fire.
A September 2023 letter from Assistant Fire Chief Dean Zipperman to the city’s transportation department requesting no-parking signs for the area also mentioned the fire risk.
“In a location with multiple recent brush fires, and in order to help proactively protect open brush in a Very High Fire Severity Zone as well as prevent continued intrusion into the bike lanes on Forest Lawn Drive, it is requested that the Department (of Transportation) authorize and install ‘Tow Away No Stopping Any Time’ restrictions,” Zipperman wrote.
“If, after a period of evaluation whereby the issues cited above have abated, it would be acceptable from the standpoint of public welfare, to restore parking and stopping of vehicles to these segments,” Zipperman continued, adding that the Los Angeles Fire Department could evaluate conditions in the future.
Sexton questioned LAFD’s reasoning, noting that two-hour parking is still permitted along another part of Forest Lawn Drive.
“If you’re going to take away parking (because of a fire hazard) – and I’m not saying I want this – the logic should be we take away all the parking,” she said.
She and others interviewed for this story said they suspect the real motive behind the red curb is to prevent people from living there in RVs.
“Remove the homeless, but don’t kill the parking,” said Sexton, who says the city can just prohibit overnight parking if the goal is to keep the live-in RVs from returning.
Zach Seidl, head of communications for Mayor Karen Bass’ office, said in a statement that the city’s Inside Safe operation which cleared more than 50 RVs last December – after the vehicles had been parked along Forest Lawn Drive for over a year – “helped save lives.”
“After operations are conducted, the City continues working in partnership with the surrounding community to improve the area based on feedback from nearby residents, businesses and other stakeholders,” he stated.
Students at the New York Film Academy, which holds classes in the same building as Sexton’s business, said they need more street parking.
While the students said they appreciated the city removing the RVs, some said they are hurt by the sudden loss of parking spaces.
They can pay to park in a lot, but many cash-strapped students said they look for free parking. And while street parking was never guaranteed – several students said they managed to find a spot close to campus about 50% of the time – the situation has gotten noticeably worse, they said.
Students now park further from campus and risk being marked absent or locked out of class – which some instructors will do if students are tardy – or some have parked in the red zone and risked being ticketed or towed away, they said.
“They got the homeless off the street, but they took away all the parking,” Remi Sepulveda, a senior at the film academy, said about city officials.
“In turn, they just kind of made our lives harder,” she said.
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