Tuesday night’s discussion of whether to eliminate the Winter Parking Ban in Watertown turned into a larger discussion of parking permits, housing, and how the City communicates messages like snow emergencies.
The City Council held a special meeting to discuss a petition signed by more than 800 residents calling for the removal of the overnight parking ban in the winter months in Watertown. Many of those residents came to meeting, packing the City Council Chamber, spilling out into the hallway and down the stairway. Plus, more than 130 joined remotely on Zoom.
Many said that they must walk long distances (sometimes a mile), sometimes in freezing and icy conditions, to lots where they are allowed to leave their vehicle overnight in the winter. They said the ban is a safety issue for women who have to walk at night, impacts the sleep of people who work off-hours and have to wake up early to move the car out of the lots. Some called it a safety issue for the, elderly, disabled, people with children and others. Also, many said it is an issue of equity, because people can’t afford rent at places with parking, or have to pay a neighbor to park on their property. Several said they cannot have people stay over during the winter because they have no place to park. Many said they were told they had parking when the rented their place, but either it did not have one or it was not guaranteed. Some said they believe it makes Watertown a less desirable place to live.
A smaller number spoke out against removing the overnight parking ban. Many said they do not believe the cars will be moved if there is a major snow storm, even with a snow emergency, so emergency vehicles could not get through. Others said that Belmont residents already park on Watertown streets near the town line because Belmont has a year-round parking ban, and expect them to park during the winter too if the ban is lifted in Watertown. Some worried that there will be more vehicles in general on the street if the ban is lifted, especially when new large residential buildings go up.
Supporters of lifting the ban suggested that a new system could include limiting parking to one side of the street so plows could get through, and if there is a big storm people will get the alert for snow emergencies and move their vehicles. Also, the City could issue parking permits so that people from other communities cannot park on Watertown’s streets. People pointed to Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston as places where they do not have an overnight parking ban, and issue snow emergencies when streets need to be plowed. Somerville and Boston also have parking permits.
Public comments lasted more than two hours.
Staff Input
After hearing from the public, the City Council heard from members of the City staff, including public safety, Public Works, and the Community Development and Planning.
Sgt. David Sampson, who heads the Watertown Police Traffic Division, said that the winter parking ban has been altered over time, but Watertown’s Traffic Rules & Orders says that cars cannot park for more than an hour on the street between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.
The signs as people enter Watertown say that the overnight parking ban is enforced from Nov. 1 to April 1, but in reality it is not enforced until after Thanksgiving, and often ends in March. Plus, the last several years there has been a 10 day lifting of the ban during the holidays, Sampson said, to allow friends and family to visit.
While much of the discussion has been about snow, Sampson said that there are other hazard during the winter to worry about.
“Ice is the biggest problem around here: it’s the flash freezes, it’s the black ice,” he said. “A lot of people just think, ‘Snow, snow,’ but it’s not. It’s the freezing temperatures that creates a lot of havoc here, and it makes it very difficult.”
Sampson said that those with a handicap placard on their vehicle are exempt from the parking ban and so they can park near their home. He added that the Police Department will hand out $15 parking tickets, but Sampson said they will also try to accommodate hardships.
“I think we’re probably the most reasonable, most flexible when it comes to this, because we as a Police Department, we give as much consideration as we can: sicknesses in the family,” he said. “Someone had a roof repair that needed to be done; they had a dumpster that’s now the driveway, something they can get done. They give us a call, we give them consideration for a couple of days so they can get that stuff done.”
Ed Baptista, the Department of Public Works Highway Supervisors, has been in charge of snow operations since 1996. He said over the past weekend’s snow emergency plows still had to weave around parked cars.
“There were hundreds of cars on the side of the road. We were fortunate. They were able with our plows, and the trucks were able to reach out separated enough that we could actually make passes through,” Baptista said. “If it’s a big storm, (Sunday) really wasn’t that big a storm, but we have large storms, and we have to go through that sort of situation; if we really have to open up for a large, if it’s going to be ignored like it was in the last storm, I think we’re going to have some problems.”
City Manager George Proakis said that the City’s system of alerting people that there is a snow emergency needs some improvement. Messages went out by phone, text, email, and on the City’s social media accounts. at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
“I wasn’t here for Sunday between 4 p.m. and 1 a.m. I was here early Monday morning, though, and was somewhat surprised to see the number of cars that were on the street with snow over the top of them, and that is with the overnight van and the snow emergency,” he said.
The system used by the City of Watertown, Everbridge, works by calling all phones at homes in Watertown, Proakis said, but he added that many people do not have land lines. People can also sign up to get alerts. Residents can sign up for Everbridge here, and visit the Snow and Winter Storm Information Page on the City’s website.
Somerville not only sends out alerts, but has installed blue lights at corners that flash when there is a snow emergency, Proakis said.
The question of the parking ban is more complicated than just making sure the roads are clear so they can be plowed during a snowstorm, said Assistant City Manager for Community Development and Planning Steve Magoon.
He noted that the Watertown Comprehensive Plan, which was adopted by the City Council in 2023, calls for re-evaluating the overnight parking ban as a medium-term priority in four to six years, which he said would be in 2028.
Other items were short-term priorities. In 2024, the City created new zoning for Watertown Square, including allowing more dense housing with a lower parking requirement — under one space per unit — and the effort to revise Citywide zoning will soon begin.
Another plan that has been adopted, and involves vehicles, is the Resilient Watertown Climate & Energy Plan, which has a goal of reducing single-person vehicle trips by 50 percent by 2050, Magoon said.
“I think we need to be careful about looking at unintended consequences, and if we simply lift the parking ban, I think there is likely to be unintended consequences and things that will happen that maybe were not things wanted to have happen,” Magoon said. “If there is no limitation, other than when there’s a snow event, then I think people will perceive that meaning there’s not a limitation on me parking on the street.”
Other unintended consequences, he said, could be that rents and housing prices will rise because an apartment or home without parking will now be able to accommodate people who have a vehicle because there is no winter parking ban.
Proakis added that a key part of the plan to make more housing in Watertown Square, and make it affordable, is having unbundled parking (where the price of parking is not included in rent, and is available for an added cost). He does not believe that scrapping the winter parking ban would allow this to work.
“That system works. It works really well in the community where I live (Melrose), where we have no allowed overnight on street parking, because we know that if you don’t rent a space in that garage, you can’t have a car because there’s no place else you can put it. It works really well in Somerville right now, because the rule that we establish with unbundled parking buildings is that we don’t give them on-street permits,” he said. “In a community where you unbundle parking and then you give away the curbs for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the system breaks.”
Proakis said that he does not think the most equitable approach is to open up streets for anyone to park for free. He added that he is not an expert, but has been reading what he called “the Bible of parking regulation,” called “The High Cost of Free Parking” by Donald Shoup, a professor at UCLA. (Read the preface here.)
“One of the things I want to focus on, related to this particular issue, is that he’s got a lot of thoughts here on how you link and connect public and private parking, and most of the solutions you come up with when you try to address this substantially rely back on capitalism and market pricing as the solution to problems, and then balancing that with equity is very difficult and challenging, but balancing it with giving away a public common space for free all of the time is particularly complicated,” he said.
The City could sell parking permits, but he said the market rates for those would probably have to be $100 a month, and would need to be accompanied by an aggressive ticketing policy. Proakis worked in Somerville before coming to Watertown, and said that city has a parking permit system, and also has a Parking Department with a budget of $5 million. For Watertown to pay for a similar department, he said fines and fees would have to increase, so parking tickets would not be $15, but more like $50.
Proakis said his job is to provide guidance and assistance to his bosses, the City Council, and implement their policy decisions, however, Tuesday he had a strong recommendation.
“I generally know my strategy as a manager is not to tell the Council policy, but I’m just saying we can work on this long range if we want, but the (current) rules will be on the books for the remainder of this season,” Proakis said.
He added later, that he believes the Comprehensive Plan is a good guide, and that the City needs to continue working on Citywide zoning, to improve public transportation including the Watertown TMA (Traffic Management Association) shuttle, and look at the whole picture. In the meantime he recommends keeping the current system in place.
“And just to be clear, I am not suggesting the answer is necessarily expensive resident permits, or the answer is eliminate alternate side parking, or the answer is a complex snow emergency system, or the answer is towing every car to snow emergency,” Proakis said. “I’m suggesting that we don’t know the answer and that there’s a lot of work to be done to figure it out, because there’s actually some very complex, interactive things here, where, if you push one problem, another pops up somewhere else, and until we actually have a really good handle on that situation, the situation we have is still playing some important roles for us.”
Council Weighs In
City Councilors thanked the people who came out to speak on Tuesday night, and also the people who wrote more than 300 emails on the subject. Many said it is exciting to see so many people interested in local government.
The issue, they agreed, was too complicated to debate and take a vote upon that night.
Council Vice President Vincent Piccirilli read the exact wording of the Comprehensive Plan about evaluating the Winter Parking Ban, which said, “to evaluate on street parking went to parking ban and parking during stone ice events in the context of city wide and neighborhood specific public safety requirements and conflicting demands.”
He added that he looked up the number of registered vehicles in Watertown, and as of December it was 24,154. The ones that do not have parking can park in 13 designated parking locations around Watertown.
“There are 923 spaces in those 13 parking locations. So, we want to sort of define the scope of the project, which I think is important whenever we embark on some sort of study,” he said. “That’s about 3.8 percent of all registered vehicles that are parking in those lots, if every single space is filled overnight, but that means that 96.2 percent of the motor vehicles that are parked tonight are parked on private property.”
Councilor Nicole Gardner said she hopes that the discussion of the parking ban can take place sooner than the Comprehensive Plan calls for.
“Does it have to be 2028? When could we realistically pull that closer in time, if we think that 2025 will be the transit study and the zoning study might be considered 2026 or 2027,” she said. “Or, if we have to push it forward, what gets pushed out? What other priority won’t we be able to get to because we’re working on that instead?”
Councilor Emily Izzo brought up a point also raised by former Councilor Susan Falkoff, about private lots that are unused at night.
“I also want to thank Steve Magoon for working on this, because this was done in the West End with the Cannistraro project, and that is just working with these developments — especially labs that are going to have enormous parking garages — to allow members of the neighborhood and the community to be able to park there, maybe similar to municipal hours,” she said. “So, I just want to encourage continuing to work on that as an option.”
Councilor Tony Palomba said he heard comments that the policy should be called the Palomba Petition, and that he was not following proper Council procedure because he helped draft the petition for the removal of the Winter Parking Ban. He responded that this is the same approach he had on other issues, such as creating the Social Services Resources position for the City, supporting the needs of people with substance use disorder, and on affordable housing issues. He added that after initiating the discussion, a group of residents formed, called Watertown Citizens for Better Parking, and then he stepped back from the petition to let them take the lead.
Palomba said that the petition does not just remove the parking ban, but has suggested alternatives.
“The petition is a call on the Council to amend (the parking rules) in a very specific way. That is to substitute the winter parking ban with snow emergencies,” He said. “This citizen’s petition is not designed to address the issues of streets crowded with cars. If folks feel this is a problem, they should seek out legislative or administrative action to address that. Residents can (currently) park on the street during the day for eight months of the year, night and day.”
He was also skeptical that changing the winter parking ban will impact things like housing prices, and whether Watertown’s Comprehensive Plan and Watertown Square Zoning will work.
“I really find it difficult when someone tells me that moving to a snow emergency situation is going to affect whether the housing prices go up. It’s going to affect whether our Climate Plan is going to be effective and whether the Comprehensive Plan is going to work,” he said. “All of a sudden, one effort to address issues that residents have brought to us has now been used to say that some of our key plans will not be effective. That’s a big leap.”
Councilor Caroline Bays said that she has seen that some of the cheaper housing in Watertown is because the units do not have parking, and now the parking and the affordable housing issues have come into conflict. She said she might have an educational session on these issues during her annual Councilor Public Meeting.
Watertown is not in the same situation as some of its neighbors, said Councilor John Gannon.
“The difference between Cambridge, Boston and Somerville is that Somerville, Cambridge, Boston, have subways. They have buses everywhere you can live without a car,” he said. “And they not only have parking, but they still have an abundance of cars.”
Gannon worked for the City of Somerville when its parking permit program started. He recalled that at first too many permits were issued, so they had to go around Somerville counting how many parking spaces were available and limiting the number of permits.
Council President Mark Sideris said he hopes to move faster on the evaluation than is called for in the Comprehensive Plan.
“I think with the complicated issue here, we have to figure out a better way. Is it one-side parking? I don’t know, is the answer,” Sideris said. “I think we can have some professionals come in and help us with that. I think 2028 is a little too late. I think we can accelerate that.”
Many thanks for your coverage of this issue .
Thanks for a very complete story on the Tuesday meeting, Charlie. If people missed it, they will have a full picture of what happened and the important points people made.
This comment was posted by Rita Colafella
To all those who came out to speak in favor of amending the snow parking ban, thank you!. Don’t let the result discourage you. It’s a marathon. Like I said last night, the average age is 38, and Watertown is an anomaly in that because it’s not true in surrounding communities. The Charles River Chamber of Commerce recently pointed it out. With Millenials now having the numbers, change will continue to occur and per your direction – if you keep showing up.
Don’t take the “new faces” or “where were you in 2016” to heart. As a townie GenXer, full time project manager, treasurer of the WDTC, steering committee member of a couple advocacy groups, leader of a Meetup group, landlord, daughter, sister, friend and caretaker, I know where you were? In school, at work , bathing a toddler, caring for a spouse, dealing with a diagnosis and getting s*** done. Time is a luxury, and you will get more back as kids graduate, relationships change and work is allowed to go to the backgound. However, if something means something to you then carve out some time to show up, email or call your local councilor. It matters, like the consequences of elections. Or donate. I have already started to donate to AOC to help her build a warchest for whatever office she decides to seek in 2028. I hope it’s president. You can also donate to your councilor because there is an election every two years.
Speaking of councilors, I am utterly disgusted by Councilor Palomba’s name being disparged, and him being accused of an ethics violation. If people go to a councilor with an issue and want to know how to avail themselves of the levers of political power, and that councilor gives them the mechanical innerworking of city hall, then there is nothing unethical about that. There’s no conflict of interest. To think that all engaged residents are not doing the same is naive. Again as a councilor, he is able to provide counsel. I applaud him! And I applaud all nine councilors, the city manager and staff who do advise residents. I dont know everyone councilor personally well but I dont think a single one is unethical. Far too often, too many people rely on doing their research. It is “THE” research as “THE” keeps data more objective. I find much of the their research skills very lax as someone wjo has a very good understand.of statistics, data, primary sources, and different study types. I will the take words of my councilor over the cherrypicled numbers of a resident who talks out three sides of their mouths any day.
Lastly, City Councilor Sideris said to report on paved over lawns. Sorry, but I will not be reporting that. Just like I won’t report on violators of other laws, ordinance or regulations unless it is a violation of someone’s rights. As I learned at WHS, surveillance is.often started by the goverent, but it is internalized and weaponized by the citizenry. I don’t mean to disparage City Councilor President’s suggestion. I just ask that you think the next time your neighbor doesnt shovel the walk, has a party till 2am, runs an Airbnb, parks for 10 hrs on your street or whateve, and allow for some grace. I do ask if you see a violation of civil rights to either report that or stand up and say that’s not right.
Carry on!
I have no real position either way about keeping or eliminating the ban, however even though I have off street parking there’s a lot to be said for having the convenience and safety of having the option of parking on the street… which I do for the remainder of the year when the ban is not in effect.
One thing from last nights meeting that had me shaking my head in disapproval was the testimony by the City Manager that leaned heavily with an anti-car message.
Its bad enough that drivers and car owners are regularly portrayed as the boogyman of urban living, but when a city official offers to consider charging on street parking fees, no matter how small, that’s where I have to pause and not take anything Proakis has to say seriously.
I also have concerns about the weaponazation of The ‘Resilient Watertown Climate & Energy Plan’ and ‘Comprehensive Plan’. The city can’t out right ban motor vehicles and they know they can’t, *but* in lieu of that they try and make owning one as difficult, painful and expensive as possible.
As for what comes next, going by the temperament and vibe of the city officials, both elected and appointed, I suspect that as in the past, the ban will continue.
With that in mind, and to those don’t want to give up just yet, I would highly recommend that they set about putting a petition together and gather enough signatures to put the question to eliminate the ban as a local ballot referendum for the 2026 election cycle… let the voters decide whats best for the community.
I am not entirely opposed to that. I think we need a plurality of options. Not everyone can walk or bike or drive. Walkable sidewalks, bike-able sidewalks (the Somerville model), drivable streets for cars, buses and shuttles. I still think we need to be in a hybrid situation as far vehicles go. One because there is no charging infrastructure and two, more importantly, because batteries are not that innovative. It’s the same technology from over hundred years ago and it will require safe disposable as well as mineral extraction (especially by third world children) which doesn’t make it very sustainable. I would like a different energy source or mechanism to power vehicles. And till the T is fixed, I will be driving into Boston. I have literally seen buses that I passed arrive 45 minutes later into the city and I’ve to waited for the subway for over 2hrs once. It used to work like clockwork 2o years ago, but not now. I think there are many solutions, not one size fits all.
Excellent coverage of this complicated story! Many thanks to those that have worked so hard on this issue. It’s a great example of citizenry government!
It is good that people came out for this meeting to raise their concerns, but as was mentioned, where were all these people when the Comprehensive Plan and Watertown Square Plan meetings happened?
Two minutes is often not enough time to raise critical points at meetings such as this one. Not having time to cover all of my thoughts, here are some additional ones I’d like to bring forward for consideration.
I believe Manager Proakis did an excellent job of pointing out the complexities of parking issues here, where he lives, and where he has worked prior to being here. His detailed explanation of what rules to determine, the often high costs of putting plans in place and enforcing them, and keeping the roads accessible are just some of the key points he raised.
The parking issues were addressed in the Comprehensive Plan. Parking issues, especially for the new high-rise, high rent apartments with very little parking being available were raised at the Watertown Square Plan meetings. Were you there? Was more parking your issue, or did you want more apartments with less parking? Complicated, isn’t it.
Concerns were raised by many that the new renters may not have cars or a space available to them when they first moved in. If they wanted to skirt the rules and try to park a car on the neighborhood streets, that was going to cause more issues on the streets and the city doesn’t have a real answer for this situation. If people’s job or life events caused them to need a car, which often happens, they would be parking in the neighborhoods.
Watertown was built with close houses, limited driveway parking as people only had one or two cars per house, and limited on-street parking between houses. We had local jobs at manufacturing and industrial sites where people could walk to work. We aren’t promoting those types of businesses now. We want mostly labs, and many of our local people don’t have the backgrounds or resumes necessary for those jobs and need cars to get elsewhere to work.
If we lift the winter parking ban, there will be more cars parked on streets. Some will be from other cities like Belmont where they have year round parking bans and Newton has many restrictions. Some of the parking will be taken up by people who now don’t have parking and really want to have a car. Landlords often don’t inform potential tenants that they don’t have parking before they sign a lease. That is wrong, but people need to be proactive and responsible and ask those types of questions before they move in.
I grew up in Cambridge and only a few houses had driveways. I lived in a 7-family triple decker where all of the renters had a minimum of two cars per unit and some had three. On average that one house took up to 14 spaces on our street. The house next to us was a triple decker taking up 6 more spaces.
That’s not counting the other two, three or single family homes on the rest of our street or the adjacent streets. We all often had to circle around on the side streets to find a space if we got home late in the evening. We couldn’t be sure we’d have a parking space in front of our home or even close by. Often we had to walk blocks to find a space, and that was even more complicated in the winter with the snow built up on the streets.
Even if we allowed parking on the streets now, with more cars and more houses, the chances of some people finding a space near their house would be difficult. So the safety issue of walking a distance alone that people are expressing could be mute depending on where you live.
Restricting parking to one side of the street overnight just limits the numbers of cars that can fit on a street. So more people would be competing for less spaces. At least now people know they have to find parking in the lots the city offers for snow emergencies and during the winter ban. If the ban goes away, there won’t be enough spaces for the winter bans because there will definitely be more cars who won’t have guaranteed spaces at their homes.
As President Sideris mentioned, the streets are definitely narrower after a snowstorm. If we have back-to-back storms, they are further reduced. If residents return to parking on their streets after a storm, passage of emergency vehicles, rubbish trucks, DPW equipment, oil trucks, etc. will have a more difficult time.
Most people are home at night sleeping and if their vehicles are on the streets over the winter months, there will be more cars there. Many fires and medical emergencies seem to happen at night. If you have cars parked in front of your house and the fire trucks or ambulances can’t pull close to the curb, that creates an emergency problem for you or your family. They can’t easily reach a house to put out a fire or get our first responders in faster to save lives. The emergency vehicles will have to park in the middle of the road and impede any other vehicles from entering or exiting the area.
If cars are parked on the streets during the day, the problems aren’t as severe as there would most likely be less of them, but they still could cause problems for fire trucks, etc. if someone not from your house is parked in front of your house.
There are no easy answers to our parking issues. That’s why so many cities have different rules. Each city needs to do what works best for them. Watertown tries to be as lenient as possible while yet taking into consideration the needs of the broader community, especially regarding safety.
People need to be responsible and anticipate their own situations as to if/when they may need a car in the future. If they think a car is a necessity for them, their decision on an apartment without provided parking is on them. If you move here knowing you don’t have parking or will have to use the municipal lots and walk a distance from your house/apartment, you are the one responsible for making that decision.
The city’s Resilient Watertown Goal of reducing single-person vehicle trips by 50 percent by 2050, was stated by Mr. Magoon. If that goal is to be met, more apartments will be built with less parking and more people could be competing for our limited street space.
Other Resilient Watertown goals that weren’t raised at the meeting are the following:
By 2050, 100% of all vehicles in Watertown are electric. (If that goal is actually put into motion, how are cars going to be charged if they only have on-street parking?)
By 2050, Watertown’s natural assets and green space are enhanced, equitably distributed, and delivering full ecosystem benefits. (If we have cars parked next to our small green strips on the front of houses, I don’t think we’ll be improving the views of our streets or benefit our people with more cars parked on them 24-hours a day and 365 days a year.)
Parking is definitely a complicated issue. I feel badly for people who now find they need or want parking and don’t have it convenient to their housing. That has been a problem for a long time and it is not one to be solved easily, but if you moved here knowing that you weren’t going to have convenient parking, that decision was made by you and each person needs to take responsibility for their own decisions.
Hopefully many people will have kind neighbors who are willing to share their driveways if they have space. Hopefully people with driveways will use them and leave spaces on the street during most months for their neighbors. In the past most people with stacked parking driveways planned accordingly and lined up their cars so the first to leave is last in line when parked overnight. Yes, it’s an inconvenience, but it’s the right thing to do if you want to be neighborly and create safe situations on our streets.
Hopefully the city zoning will allow enough driveway parking for new housing so the parking problems don’t grow. Hopefully the city won’t allow 10 people to live together in rental housing, which would only increase the parking issues. (That actually has been discussed at prior city meetings!)
I support the decision to retain the winter ban for safety sake and for quality of life. Our police department is short staffed and we don’t need officers having to exit their cars on cold nights to write tickets when they have so many other serious issues with which to deal. And we don’t need to create more tension for our emergency fire personnel when they are trying to help people in a timely manner.
“Reasonable people can reasonably disagree on policy.” was said by Mark McKinnon, an American political advisor for five successful presidential primary and general election campaigns, and is a co-founder of No Labels, an organization dedicated to bipartisanship and political problem solving. Hopefully, without getting political, we can all approach this issue with reason and consideration of all our neighbors when we encounter situations we can’t change.
To: City Council President and Council Members and City Staff:
My observations of last night’s meeting on the petition to change the parking regulations during the winter months:
I was surprised by the number of units in Watertown rented without parking either knowingly by the renter or ignorantly accepted by the renter.
The proponents were well organized and many were scripted. Many were either from the same address or nearby streets or addresses. Their complaints included:
o The inconvenience of stacked parking.
o The distance from their apartment to city-provided spaces.
o The potential safety issues for folks walking to those spots during non-daylight hours, either fall hazard or mugging potential.
o Difficulty for handicapped folks getting to their vehicles.
o Inconvenience of not being able to park in front of one’s apartment/house.
o Not enough spaces for the number of renters in the apartment.
The City staff was well prepared and provided responses to many of the issues raised by the proponents. Mr. Proakis indicated it is not an easy issue and many things impact parking on public property. One suggested alternative of parking permits could be more costly than the current rental of off-street parking. The police, fire, DPW and planning departments provided expert rationale for the implementation of the overnight parking ban. It was noted this had been reviewed a number of times and is schedule to be revisited again by our planning department in 2028.
Like many of us in Watertown, we have lived in a number of spots. Joanie and I lived on Union Street back in the seventies for a few years. Parking was an issue then, but we were lucky enough to have stacked parking for our unit. The issue of parking isn’t just an issue with the east end and south side, it is throughout the city, although it is more prevalent in the east end and south side.
It is clear that either the landlords are not clear in the availability of parking with their rentals or the renters are naïve to the issues that they will face in finding off street parking when required and ignore the issue. There should be clear language as to what is or is not provided.
The city and its residents should not be the ones providing the remedy for those units that do not provide adequate off-street parking without a fee.
The city should keep the current procedures in place and possibly consider the enforcement of the ban year-round. The review of the street parking should be moved forward if possible.
Thanks to the City Council members and City staff for providing input into this issue that will not go away.
At the meeting, not a single proponent of keeping the parking ban said they are among those who actually have to park in a designated municipal parking areas.
There are always unanticipated consequences to adjusting anything at all. But further issues can be considered and addressed, in kind. There are also consequences to failing to adjust anything at all. Retaining the ban ensures continued burden and physical danger borne by individuals currently impacted by the ban.
Hi Jeff,
I recall that there were quite a few people there at the meeting who said that they wanted to eliminate the parking ban even though they actually had parking spots. They found them too “inconvenient” to use…having to decide whose car had to be first to get out in the morning, for instance. I guess they viewed that as taking precedence to fire trucks getting up the street.
One guy went so far as to bring up this scenario: What if there was a doctor parked in the driveway and there was an emergency and the car in back of his wouldn’t start? I’m not going to unpack the silliness of this scenario. You can do it for yourself.
Indeed. They were also a few parking spot owners [opposing the ban] who commiserated with those who did not have them because it was not fair; it struck me as nothing more than an exercise of virtue-signaling.
I can think of one scenario where the Fire or PD cannot get to an emergency because of parked cars in the unplowed snow. The other scenario is the legal actions for damages against the City because of it.
I think the City authorities (with a few notable exceptions) realize the potential liabilities, and will leave the regulations as they are.
RETRACTION:
I retract the following paragraph.
“Lastly, City Councilor Sideris said to report on paved over lawns. Sorry, but I will not be reporting that. Just like I won’t report on violators of other laws, ordinance or regulations unless it is a violation of someone’s rights. As I learned at WHS, surveillance is often started by the government, but it is internalized and weaponized by the citizenry. I don’t mean to disparage City Councilor President’s suggestion.
I apologize to City Councilor President Sideris for stating this as fact or his intention. I misheard and/or misinterpreted what was being said.