Planning Commission approves Ohana Festival parking plan
By CLARA BEARD
The Dana Point Planning Commission unanimously approved a coastal development permit allowing the Ohana Festival to reserve 600 spaces in the Dana Point Harbor parking structure during the three-day music festival later this month.
The permit covers festival parking from September 25-27 at the 984-space public structure at 799 Harbor Way. Ohana Festival will take place nearby at Doheny State Beach.
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Photo by Mary Hurlbut
The Dana Point Harbor parking structure will provide 600 reserved spaces for the 2026 Ohana Festival under a coastal development permit approved by the Planning Commission
Senior Planner Alyssa Gonzalez told commissioners the festival used the same number of parking spaces last year, but city officials later discovered an additional permit was required.
“In 2025, the Ohana Festival applied for and obtained a special event permit through the Community Services Department,” Gonzalez said at the August 24 meeting.
She said the department was unaware at the time that Dana Point Harbor regulations also required a coastal development permit for temporary use of the structure.
Gonzalez added that city code enforcement received no complaints connected to the festival’s use of the parking structure in 2025.
Under the newly approved permit, festival spaces will be placed on the structure’s second and third levels. The first floor is intended to remain accessible to the public, including customers of harbor businesses that will remain open during the event.
“The request is still for 600 spaces,” Gonzalez said, adding that the first floor would be maintained for public access under Condition 13 of the permit.
Several commissioners questioned how parking operators would prevent festivalgoers without prepaid passes from occupying spaces intended for harbor customers.
Festival representatives said parking passes would be sold in advance for $55 per vehicle plus a transaction fee. Signs will direct prepaid festival traffic to designated lanes, where attendants will scan electronic passes.
Dan Conley, director of operations for the Ohana Festival, said organizers are working with a traffic-management company that has assisted the event for the past decade. The company has also coordinated with the city and its Public Works Department on plans intended to reduce traffic impacts on surrounding neighborhoods.
Conley said different entrances will be used for festival traffic and for members of the public visiting Dana Wharf businesses. Attendants will guide prepaid vehicles into assigned portions of the upper floors.
“We’ll have traffic attendants that, almost Disneyland-style, if you will, park them as they enter into the parking structure,” Conley told the commission.
The operation will also include temporary directional signs, parking personnel and security personnel. Any lane closures or temporary traffic-control measures must receive city approval.
Parking data from the 2025 festival showed that demand peaked between 5 and 7 p.m. The highest occupancy was recorded on Friday, Sept. 26, when 678 spaces were occupied between 5 and 6 p.m. At that level of occupancy, approximately 306 spaces remained available in the structure.
Staff said current construction in the harbor’s Commercial Core has reduced demand because several former businesses have closed or been demolished. Some businesses that remain open will close during the afternoon or early evening on festival days.
Gonzalez said the proposed arrangement provides sufficient parking while supporting coastal access and reducing the likelihood that festival traffic will spill into nearby residential neighborhoods.
