A pending ordinance would bar parking fees at more than 50 city lots, setting access against a budget gap the city says will keep growing.
SAN DIEGO, California (Surf Revolt) – The question of whether a Californian should pay to park a car at the beach is not abstract in San Diego, where the city council is weighing a permanent ban on charging for it. An ordinance sponsored by Council President Joe LaCava and Councilmember Raul Campillo would forbid parking fees at city-owned lots that serve the ocean and Mission Bay. It has cleared a council committee and still awaits a vote by the full council, based on the latest coverage available.
What the ordinance would do
According to Times of San Diego, the measure would add a section to the municipal code barring fees at city-owned lots with beach or Mission Bay access. That covers more than 50 lots, including Kellogg Park, Windansea, Tourmaline, Fiesta Island, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Crown Point, De Anza Cove and Ski Beach. It would not cover on-street meters or lots leased to outside operators such as SeaWorld and Mission Bay hotels, and it would leave the city free to ticket violations, regulate commercial activity and issue event permits.
The Rules Committee voted unanimously to advance it, dropped the original 2036 sunset date after objections, and narrowed the benefit to city residents. NBC 7 San Diego reported that LaCava said moving the idea from a ballot question to an ordinance could save taxpayers nearly $1 million.
Why the city almost went the other way
The ordinance exists because the idea of charging was real. ABC 10News reported that four councilmembers explored charging people, particularly non-residents, to park along the shoreline to help close a $120 million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year. After pushback, the idea was dropped from the council’s list of budget priorities. Then came Balboa Park, where paid parking began in January 2026, drew backlash, and is set to end by the start of 2027 under a settlement, with the council voting in June to wind it down.
Campillo told reporters he used the Balboa Park experience to shape the beach proposal. In the March ABC 10News story on the original plan, he described the aim as keeping public spaces “clear, protected, and accountable.” The reporting from that station also noted that a voter-approved version would have been harder for a future administration to reverse. An ordinance can be amended by a later council, which is a weaker guarantee than the one voters would have given.
The price tag: $10 million or $37 million?
The forgone revenue is not small, and estimates vary widely. The city’s independent budget analyst staff said paid parking at the beach and bay lots could generate more than $10 million a year, according to Times of San Diego. A KPBS analysis reached a higher figure: with 8,221 public spaces and the city’s $2.50-an-hour street meter rate, the lots could collect up to $205,000 a day, and a full year, assuming the lots are half full on average, could exceed $37.5 million.
Budget analyst Charles Modica told KPBS the city’s budget challenges will worsen in coming years. LaCava said the mayor and council committed in June not to pursue new revenue ideas this budget cycle, and described the goal as drawing a line in the sand against using beach parking for revenue.
- Lots covered: more than 50 city-owned beach and Mission Bay lots.
- Excluded: on-street meters and leased lots.
- Revenue at stake: more than $10 million a year per the budget analyst, up to $37.5 million per KPBS’ scenario.
- Status: Rules Committee approved unanimously; full council vote still pending in the coverage available.
The fairness argument, and the access argument
KPBS also reported that more than 70 percent of San Diego transit riders come from households with fewer cars, and more than half have incomes under $60,000, based on MTS data. Countywide, 38 percent of riders have no vehicle, per SANDAG, and only one of six bus routes near city beaches runs more often than every 30 minutes. That cuts both ways. Free lots help families who drive, but car-free beachgoers do not use them, and they still pay for the transit they rely on.
Elsewhere, KPBS noted, paid parking is the norm at Orange County and Los Angeles beaches and at state beaches such as Torrey Pines.
The libertarian read
There is a lot to like here. The beach is public, the shoreline belongs to everyone, and a toll at the end of the road is a tax on getting to the water, a tax that falls on people who have little choice about how they arrive. A city that tried to close a budget hole by charging for sand access would be treating the coast as a revenue farm. Surfers who paddle out in the dark before work know what a $10 daily fee does to a habit.
But a consistent view has to hold two things at once. First, free parking is not free; the cost shifts to general taxpayers and to the roads and restrooms the lots serve, a tension Mission Bay already felt when the city closed about half its public bathrooms and reopened them after public complaints. Second, the residents-only limit creates a new barrier. Campillo himself raised concerns, reported by Times of San Diego, that it could treat county residents outside city limits like out-of-state visitors. Rules that sort beachgoers by address are a poor model for open access.
The cleaner solution is to control spending so that the budget does not need the lots, and to let public beaches stay open to everyone. If the council passes this ordinance, it should reconsider the residents-only clause, and it should look at the budget gap itself rather than the parking lot.
What to watch next
The coming full-council vote will show whether the Rules Committee’s unanimity holds. Watch also for how the city treats the revenue gap in the next budget, whether the residents-only language survives, and whether other coastal cities, such as Irvine, which KPBS said is considering a paid parking plan for Great Park, take the opposite course.
Bohiney Magazine covers California and the rest of America from the comedy side, and a council arguing over a $2.50 meter while a $120 million deficit looms has more than enough material to keep its writers busy.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/