Council changes key on parking

Deirdre Newman

When residents who own houses complain to the City Council about

their streets being overrun by parked cars, the council typically

grants their request to put in parking restrictions, and the

situation is resolved.

But in College Park, that’s not always the case.

On Monday, a group of College Park residents who own houses asked

the council to keep the nearby multitude of apartment, condominium

and Costa Mesa Mobile Estates residents from parking on their

streets. The house-owners contend the parking situation is ruining

their quality of life for a variety of reasons, including trash left

by vehicle-owners and the lack of parking spaces for their guests.

Since the council already put in parking restrictions on Cornell

Drive -- between Wilson and Joann streets -- some council members

were concerned that doing the same for other nearby streets would not

solve the problem, only shift it to the next neighborhood.

So they shifted their thinking.

Instead of automatically putting in parking restrictions, such as

requiring permits, the council opted to give staff members six months

to research the parking proliferation’s cause and come up with some

creative solutions. They approved this strategy on a 4-1 vote.

“I don’t have the answer,� Mayor Gary Monahan said. “I believe the

answer is not in front of us. I think we have to think outside the

box.�

So staff members will spend the next six months looking into the

root of the parking problem on Columbia Drive, Wake Forest Road,

Amherst Place, Tulare Place, Dartmouth Place, Rutgers Drive and

Fordham Drive.

They will ask the landlords of the apartment complexes, the

condominium complexes and the mobile home park to be part of the

solution. They will solicit input from all residents in the area.

They will ask nearby commercial property owners if they are

interested in renting their parking spaces out at night. And they

will explore other options to find the most feasible solutions

benefiting the most people in the neighborhood.

Getting the people who live in the neighborhood to help come up

with a solution makes sense, said Robert Shaffer, who lives on Wilson

Street.

“We’re a community,� Shaffer said. “We should have a neighborhood

meeting and not have [parking restrictions] shoved down our throats.�

When the council granted Cornell Drive residents’ request,

Transportation Services Division staff members found there had been

an extreme shortage of parking for the mobile home park residents for

at least 15 years. Monday, many of the 34 speakers said the problem

on their streets had popped up in the last two or three years.

“It’s especially worse on the weekends,� Rutgers Drive resident

Omar Olmedo said.

Councilman Chris Steel dissented from the rest of the council

members. He said he thought immediate relief should be given to the

house-owners in the form of parking restrictions while staff members

worked on a more comprehensive solution.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers government. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].