About 3,400 Oakland residents around Temescal and Piedmont Avenue are eligible for free parking permits for the next 50 years, courtesy of Kaiser Permanente.

The permits will come in handy in March when many streets in these neighborhoods are slated to shift to a two-hour restricted system Monday through Friday. As a result of the hospital's growth, parking on many streets near Kaiser's Oakland Medical Center, at Broadway and West MacArthur Boulevard, is in short supply.

But bewilderment has plagued the permit program after a poorly-worded letter went out to many hospital neighbors in January.

Wladimir Wlassowsky, transportation services manager for the city, said the mailing took three months longer than it should have taken to arrive, and failed to reach many people who will be affected, due to errors caused by the contractor in charge of the mailing.

"That funky letter has really confused people," said Zach Wald, chief of staff to City Council President Jane Brunner. "I've heard that from a lot of different people."

Among other problems, the January letter failed to mention that Kaiser would pay for the permits, gave recipients less than two weeks to apply for them and was dated January 2009. The letter also contained a ballot related to the permit system without clear instructions on how to use it. Additionally, the city gave contact information for questions regarding permits for an employee who stopped working for the city shortly after the letter was sent.

Wlassowsky said the letter left many people "extremely frustrated" because of unclear language and because it took so long to be mailed. He added that there have been other problems with the outside agency responsible for the city's mailings, and that one city committee has voted to move forward with a new contractor. The City Council has not voted on the issue.

Wlassowsky said he intends for the new letter to go out by the end of next week, and that he'll give people at least three weeks to respond. His office will handle the mailing internally, labeling envelopes and double checking addresses.

"We're not going to leave anyone out in the cold," he said. "It will take a little longer to be implemented but we're not going to be posting signs before people have time to return their applications."

The city approved a resolution in September to allow permits for the most affected streets.

But residents of each block will have the final say in whether to participate, said Wlassowsky. Fifteen households must apply for a block to qualify. In cases where there are fewer than 15 houses on a block, 50 percent of the residents must opt in.

He cautioned that blocks that reject the program likely will be left even more congested when permits go into effect, as people trolling for longer-term spots discover the few remaining streets that aren't protected. But those who want to opt out, he said, are welcome to call his office for help. Residents are able to apply by mail or in person for passes for visitors, which cost $1 per day or $5 for two weeks.

One reason some people are resistant to parking permits is the hassle they can cause. To qualify for a permit, people must provide their car registration and a driver's license showing the permit address along with a utility bill or a current lease.  People who live in shared houses, where not everyone is on the lease or utility bills, may face challenges in providing proper documentation, as will those who have moved frequently, as the Department of Motor Vehicles does not issue new licenses even when a new address is filed.

Judy DeVries, a spokeswoman for Kaiser, said there have been "a lot of impacts to parking" as a result of hospital construction.

But the goal of the permit program is to give precedence to the people who live around the hospital, rather than making them fight with patients and Kaiser employees to find spots.

There are about 1,700 residences in the affected area, she said. Two permits are allowed per household, according to the January letter from the city. (Oakland's parking permit Web site says three permits are allowed.) Some people closer to the hospital and Piedmont Avenue already transitioned to permits as the result of an earlier effort to address parking issues.

Paying for the permits was part of an agreement Kaiser made in 2006 after an environmental assessment showed how the hospital's growth would affect the neighborhood. The hospital facilities and surrounding areas are undergoing major construction during their transformation into a "comprehensively planned state-of-the-art medical center."

According to the master plan, the first phase of construction was a 165,000 square-foot medical services building on the west side of Broadway along with a 738-space parking garage and a 34-space surface parking lot. The second phase will be a 346-bed hospital, outpatient services offices, a central utilities plant and a 1,216-space parking garage. The third phase entails construction of an administration building of approximately 60,000 square feet and a 189-space parking facility. Three overhead pedestrian bridges are proposed, one over MacArthur and two over Broadway, to link the campus together.

TAKE ACTION

For more information about permits, call Philip Ho, Oakland transportation engineer, at 238-3466 or 238-6256. He can be reached by e-mail at PHo@oaklandnet.com.

Kaiser holds a monthly meeting regarding construction issues and invites community members to attend the next session, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. in the second floor conference room at the Broadway Medical Office Building and Cancer Center, 3701 Broadway.

A city representative will attend the meeting to discuss permit issues. For more information, Judy DeVries can be reached at 752-2004 or Judy.DeVries@kp.org.