Malaga Cove Plaza's Coffee Shop Was Approved on Parking Data From Before It Existed

The storefront at 22 Malaga Cove Plaza sat vacant for years. The last time anyone formally counted the plaza's parking, in 2013 and 2014, the city counted it as an empty space and left it out of the analysis.

On June 16, 2026, the Palos Verdes Estates Planning Commission approved a specialty coffee shop for that same space. Four months later, the City Council heard a presentation on the first full parking study of the plaza in more than a decade. Dr. Brandy Chappell-Hill of Cal Poly Pomona is leading it with a studio of senior planning students.

For anyone who parks at the plaza for lunch or a quick errand, the order of those two decisions matters. The café's permit came before the new count. Until the students' numbers arrive in 2027, the plaza runs on two conditions the commissioners added from the dais and on a permit that comes back up for review every year.

The Count Behind the Approval

The staff memo for CUP-002-26 describes the business as Misc. Coffee, serving specialty coffee and tea drinks with a limited selection of pastries from third-party vendors. The tenant space is about 1,762 square feet, with 634 of those set aside for indoor dining. The plan calls for 32 seats inside and about 12 on the patio.

The parking math is simple. Under the city's municipal code, this kind of commercial use needs one parking space for every three seats, so 44 seats require 15 spaces. Against that, the memo puts the number of spaces in the central plaza area that the building can use at about 168.

The memo's parking analysis rests on a much older study. City engineering staff ran license plate surveys in September and October 2013 and again in September 2014. The results went to the Traffic Safety Committee and the City Council in October 2014. The memo states plainly that the analysis "was based on the uses in the plaza at the time of the survey, which does not include the use of this tenant space as a coffee shop since this space has been vacant for years." The survey left out the plaza's other vacant spaces too.

Staff didn't expect a significant parking impact. They predicted the busiest times would be breakfast and lunch, and that many customers would come from nearby businesses. The memo gave the commission two options. It could ask for a new parking study before approving the permit, or it could approve the permit with an annual review, which would let it add or change conditions later if parking problems showed up. The commission chose the second option.

Two Conditions Written at the Meeting

The June 16 meeting minutes show the resolution passing 4-0. One commissioner stepped away from the vote because she runs a business in Malaga Cove Plaza. Commissioners added two conditions to the staff draft before they voted:

• Employees may not park in the Malaga Cove Plaza parking lot.
• All exterior tables and chairs must sit within 10 feet of the building's façade.

The first condition goes straight at the parking problem. The memo estimates about 10 staff in total, with up to six scheduled on a weekday and up to seven on weekends. On a busy Saturday, that keeps up to seven cars out of the plaza lot during café hours. The second condition keeps the patio close to the building.

The approved resolution limits hours to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. The public file was short. The one letter submitted came from a resident who supported the café, pointing to how few coffee options there are nearby and to the activity a café would add. The letter says nothing about parking or hours.

The applicants are Joon Bae and Ji Tae Chung. As of late October, the Misc. Coffee website still lists only one location, at 550 Deep Valley Drive, Suite 149, in Rolling Hills Estates. The site doesn't list the plaza location yet.

What the City Now Says About the Plaza

In June, a staff memo said a 44-seat café was unlikely to strain parking. By October, a different staff report, written for the October 13, 2026 City Council meeting, described the whole plaza differently:

"Due to changing tenant types, including more intensive restaurant and retail, and personal uses, along with ongoing community concerns, the existing parking supply is experiencing significant strain during peak periods."

The report also explains why parking at Malaga Cove is tight in a way it isn't at a strip center. Most businesses have little or no parking of their own and depend on a limited supply of public spaces. At peak business hours, and on weekends, holidays, special event days and busy seasons, the report says available parking can fall short of what customers, employees and visitors need. The effects it lists are more cars circling, less convenience for customers and parking spilling onto the surrounding residential streets.

The two staff documents don't contradict each other. The June memo looked at one café against an old baseline. The October report looks at the plaza as a whole. Its point is that the tenant mix has moved toward heavier uses since the last count, and the café is one of them.

Why Planning Students Are Doing the Count

The staff report says the Community Development Director reached out to Cal Poly Pomona's Department of Urban and Regional Planning because of "the City's resource constraints." The city and the university signed a professional services agreement on August 24, 2026. Dr. Brandy Chappell-Hill leads the work through the department's Community Planning Studio, a senior course built around real planning problems. The council minutes list 22 senior students and three faculty members on the project. Council received and filed the presentation.

The study runs on the academic calendar:

The timing matters for anyone who uses the plaza. This fall's work is planning, so nobody is counting cars yet. Data collection starts in the spring semester, which means the new count will be the first one taken while the Misc. Coffee space is part of the plaza's tenant mix. The employee interviews matter too, because employee parking is the exact thing the café's first condition addressed.

According to the staff report, the study will measure current and future parking shortfalls and connect land uses to parking demand. It will also recommend both short-term operational fixes and longer-term capital and policy steps, with the plaza's historic character, local businesses, the visitor experience and the district's long-term economic health all part of the brief. The report doesn't list a cost for the work.

Parking the Plaza Before the New Numbers Arrive

For now, the city's Malaga Cove parking map, which marks Neptune's Fountain and an approximate five-minute walking radius, labels four lots:

1. Plaza Lot: 30-minute, 2-hour and 4-hour spaces
2. City Hall Lot: 2-hour and all-day spaces
3. Upper City Hall Lot: all-day
4. Lower City Hall Lot: all-day

The map says the time limits apply Monday through Friday unless a sign says otherwise. City Hall is at 340 Palos Verdes Drive West. The map isn't dated, so the posted signs at each lot are the current rule.

The short-term spaces in the Plaza Lot are the ones the café's conditions protect. The City Hall lots are where all-day parking still exists. The October staff report describes weekends, holidays and special events as the hardest stretches, and the time limits on the map are written for weekdays.

The study period lines up with the café's first year. Misc. Coffee's permit is subject to annual review, and the commission kept the power to add or change conditions if parking impacts appear. The Cal Poly Pomona findings are expected in May 2027. When the commission next looks at this permit, it will have more current numbers than the 2014 surveys it relied on in June.

The city's October 16 update says the students will interview business owners and employees in the spring and present their completed findings to the City Council. That presentation will be the next public point where the plaza's parking comes up.

If you want to talk through how plaza changes like this show up in day-to-day life around Malaga Cove, or in how a nearby home presents to buyers, Lisa Moule Realty would be glad to walk it through with you. Schedule your South Bay consultation.