(a) (1) A city, county, or city and county may, by ordinance or resolution, find and declare that there are privately owned and maintained offstreet parking facilities as described in the ordinance or resolution within the city, county, or city and county that are generally held open for use of the public for purposes of vehicular parking. Upon enactment by a city, county, or city and county of the ordinance or resolution, Sections 22350, 23103, and 23109 and the provisions of Division 16.5 (commencing with Section 38000) shall apply to privately owned and maintained offstreet parking facilities, except as provided in subdivision (b).

(2) (A) If a city, county, or city and county enacts an ordinance or resolution authorized by paragraph (1), the city, county, or city and county may include in that ordinance or resolution authorization for the operator of a privately owned and maintained offstreet parking facility to regulate unauthorized parking in that facility.

(B) (i) If a city, county, or city and county has exercised its authority pursuant to subparagraph (A) and unauthorized parking is regulated in a privately owned and maintained offstreet parking facility, the owner or operator of that facility shall include in a parking fee invoice instructions that describe the manner in which to contest the parking fee invoice.

(ii) If a city, county, or city and county has exercised its authority pursuant to subparagraph (A) and unauthorized parking is regulated in a privately owned and maintained offstreet parking facility, the owner or operator of that facility shall not file with, or transmit to, the Department of Motor Vehicles a parking fee invoice for the purpose of having the Department of Motor Vehicles attempt to collect unpaid parking fees by refusing to renew the registration of a vehicle pursuant to Section 4760.

(b) (1) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), an ordinance or resolution enacted pursuant to that subdivision does not apply to an offstreet parking facility unless the owner or operator has caused to be posted in a conspicuous place at each entrance to that offstreet parking facility a notice not less than 17 by 22 inches in size with lettering not less than one inch in height, to the effect that the offstreet parking facility is subject to public moving vehicle laws and violators may be subject to a parking invoice fee.

(2) If applicable, a parking receipt distributed to drivers shall include language explicitly stating that violators may be subject to a parking invoice fee.

(c) An ordinance or resolution shall not be enacted pursuant to subdivision (a) without a public hearing on the matter and 10 days prior written notice to the owner and operator of the privately owned and maintained offstreet parking facility involved.

(d) Section 22507.8 may be enforced without enactment of an ordinance or resolution as required pursuant to subdivision (a) or the posting of a notice at each entrance to the offstreet parking facility as required by paragraph (1) of subdivision (b).

(e) The department shall not be required to provide patrol or to enforce any provision of this code in a privately owned and maintained offstreet parking facility subject to this section except those provisions applicable to private property actions not described in this section.

(f) A city, county, or city and county that authorizes private parking regulation pursuant to this section shall, in its ordinance or resolution, include provisions that include all of the following:

(1) Procedures for dispute resolution in accordance with Section 40215, including all of the following:

(A) A written and publicly available dispute resolution policy that includes specified time periods for notifications, review, and appeal.

(B) An administrative hearing process that includes all of the following:

(i) Options for a hearing in person or by mail.

(ii) Administrative review.

(iii) A hearing by a third-party examiner who has been adequately trained and who provides an independent, objective, fair, and impartial review.

(iv) Personal delivery or delivery by first-class mail of the examiner’s decision.

(v) Authority for the examiner to allow payment of the parking invoice fee in installments for persons showing evidence of inability to pay the parking invoice fee in full.

(2) A prohibition against incentives based on the number of invoices issued or the number or percentage of disputed invoices adjudicated that uphold parking invoice fees.

(3) A cap on a parking invoice fee that is commensurate with the most nearly equivalent municipal parking fine.

(4) Measures to prevent a private parking regulator from representing itself as a government enforcement agency, including a prohibition against the use of terminology in ordinances, resolutions, and parking fee invoices that is restricted to governmental law enforcement and a requirement that a conspicuous statement be included on parking fee invoices to the effect that “This parking invoice fee notice is not issued by the [local government].”

(Amended by Stats. 2017, Ch. 741, Sec. 4. (AB 503) Effective January 1, 2018.)