Playhouse Village Paid Parking Rules Head to Pasadena City Council

Rules governing two Pasadena parking commissions — including a new panel whose leadership is pursuing paid parking in Playhouse Village — are headed to the City Council after clearing the Municipal Services Committee on Tuesday in under a minute.

The committee took up the item with no staff presentation, no discussion and no public comment. Jon Hamblen, the city’s parking manager, was offered the floor and declined.

Neither set of rules takes effect without final Council approval.

The Pasadena Playhouse Parking Meter Zone Advisory Commission was established in 2025 to advise the city on the Playhouse meter zone. It recommends to the Council how net meter revenues in the zone should be spent on street and parking work, and it studies parking issues referred by the Council or the transportation director, including proposed meter rate changes.

The commission’s leadership began meeting periodically with Department of Transportation staff to advance objectives that include launching a paid parking program in the Playhouse Village area, the department said. The seven-member panel adopted its rules unanimously Nov. 10.

The second panel, the South Lake Parking Place Commission, manages the South Lake Parking District and last amended its bylaws in 1988.

When the Council authorized the South Lake Parking Meter Zone District in June 2007, the five-member commission gained advisory status over the meters on top of its oversight of the Shoppers Lane lots, and its bylaws were to be updated. That did not happen.

“A recent staff audit discovered that the bylaws had not been updated,” the Department of Transportation said. The revised rules passed unanimously July 24.

Staff recommended that the Council find the action exempt from environmental review as an administrative activity, and said it carries no fiscal impact.