The Laguna Beach City Council voted to invest $1,300,000 over five years to launch a parking app that officials say will show available on-street spaces and allow meter payments through the phone.

City leaders said the city will work with Frog Parking, a New Zealand company that already provides similar services at the Irvine Spectrum, to install sensors in individual parking stalls. The sensors will update availability roughly every eight seconds, and the app will allow drivers to search by location and pay meters remotely, officials said.

“Parking in Laguna Beach can be very difficult,” Greg Lee, an ABC7 Eyewitness News reporter, said in a report summarizing the council decision and rollout plans. Lee noted the city estimates about 6,000,000 visitors a year and that downtown parking demand spikes during summer months.

Officials said the new technology is intended to reduce motorists circling for spaces and to complement Laguna Beach’s trolley system by directing drivers to available lots farther from downtown. The council-approved contract with Frog Parking was described in the meeting report as covering hardware, software and five years of service; further funding details and the vendor contract number were not specified in the transcript.

Not all residents supported the app. One resident, speaking during recorded remarks in the report, said the city’s funds should instead go toward building a parking structure. “I already own a lot there. It could be 8 or 10 stories. It wouldn't block anyone's view,” the resident said. A second resident noted availability at peripheral lots: “Our parking lot's a little bit away from downtown. They typically have, you know, 40, 50 spots available.”

The city hopes to launch the technology downtown by this summer, according to the report. The transcript did not include a vote tally, the names of the motion’s mover and seconder, or specific departmental implementation timelines.

What the council approved is limited to the investment described during the meeting; other decisions such as siting for any future parking structure, changes to parking rates, or longer-term capital projects were not part of the recorded action. Implementation will require the vendor to install stall sensors and integrate payment processing into the city’s existing parking systems, which city staff said they expect to complete before the summer launch.

Reporting in Laguna Beach, Greg Lee, ABC7 Eyewitness News.