Does your city have a law this idiotic?

[emeleel]

Got a letter from the city today. Seems we're in violation of one of the housing "nuisance" codes. Yeah, we're just terrible people, trashing up our yard and un-beautifyin' the city by......

parking our cars in the front yard.



Understand, we have a tiny front yard with no formal driveway or parking area. We have two cars, and remember I'm a stay at home mom. We don't like to park on the street after having a window busted out of DH's car years ago. But the city ordinance says that you cannot park your car in your yard at any time, front or back. (With exceptions for parties or other temporary gatherings where you have multiple cars to park.)

So now we can A) Take away our ENTIRE front yard with parking area or B) Park on the street and take our chances with the neighborhood kids.

Oh, and we have a week to do this. (We can get an extension if we call in, the lady at the office said.)

I am beyond steamed right now. Permanently parked junkers I can understand, but perfectly good cars? That's insane!

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

That's been the law in several of the towns in which I've lived - no cars on lawns, junked or running. In Long Island, it's to discourage houses overcrowded with immigrant day laborers. In the other places I lived, it was more for aesthetics.

[drmomentum[$]]

I think we might have a law like this.

We have a law about unregistered cars (even in your driveway), which I wasn't aware of until recently. My neighbors were nice enough to inform me, rather than inform the police. (My car wasn't a junker, I was just getting ready to sell it, but they don't care about the condition of the car, just whether it's registered or not).

-JP

[phoenixx]

Pour gravel. Dye the gravel hot pink. Voila! "Acceptable" yet irritating designated parking area

[Redlass]

We have that law too. In fact, several of our township "beautification" laws I find extremely annoying.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Now that I think about it, they first passed this law in a neighboring town while I was covering their town board meetings for the paper. In their case, they were rural so you would think it wouldn't matter too much, but there was a guy who was buying, fixing, and selling cars from his front lawn as a sort of ad-hoc car dealership - a dozen cars a month, easily, without incorporating and living in an area zoned residential, not commercial.

[theworm[$]]

yep.
similar laws here.

[mtomm[$]]

This would be really bad for us because my husband likes to park on the lawn. He told me not to park on the lawn but he can

[emeleel]

Pour gravel. Dye the gravel hot pink. Voila! "Acceptable" yet irritating designated parking area

Leslie, I like your style! :thumbs:

but there was a guy who was buying, fixing, and selling cars from his front lawn as a sort of ad-hoc car dealership - a dozen cars a month, easily, without incorporating and living in an area zoned residential, not commercial.

Apparently, that's one of the no-no's also - there is a check box for "display for sale". Don't know if that means you can't ever have your own car up for sale at your property or what.

Two weird ones are under the "junk vehicle" section - two spaces for "no motor" and "no transmission". How in the samhill are they going to know whether or not your parked car is missing any part of the engine? And apparently you're not allowed to have an unrunning car with an expired tag, as that is one of the check boxes, also.

[emeleel]

I guess what steams me is that half of this town is older neighborhoods, and many of the properties are small and close together. Our next door neighbors have fairly large home, so their front yard is only half the size of ours. (They *can't* park a car in their yard unless they straddle the walkway with it.) Our yard, like most others in the area, is just big enough that we could put 3 cars on it if we had them; one on one side of the walk, and two on the other side. So if we're going to gravel off enough to park the two cars, DH may just want to go ahead and throw up his hands and do the whole thing, although I hope not.

The other thing that steams me is, with the yard being so small, the only difference is that if we put down the gravel, we'll just be parking on gravel instead of grass IN THE SAME FREAKIN' SPOTS. How is that aesthetically any different?! In fact, it will be uglier because it will be gravel instead of grass where the ground can be seen.

[poseidon]

Our HOA (of which I am Secretary-Treasurer) just passed a "law" on parking. It became necessary because we've got way too many people who are parking where they darned well please. That wouldn't be a big deal if we all didn't share a common driveway (this is a townhouse complex).

Basically, we live on a "loop" -- there are three rows of townhomes with a driveway that makes a large oval. There is limited guest parking.

Unfortunately, too many homeowners have decided that they'd rather park in front of their garage doors instead of parking inside their garages (we have a few homeowners who have decided that the garage is a great home gym instead of a garage and another homeowner who has decided her garage makes a much better craft shop than a place to park).

There are no individual driveways. Attached to the buildings about every third garage door, is a sign that says "<=No Parking - Fire Lane=>" but that doesn't stop people from parking there. On a good day, there will be about 12-15 cars parked in front of the garages (we have about 50 units here). On a bad day, that number is closer to 20.

This creates a dangerous situation. There are times when it becomes difficult to drive your car through the maze of vehicles parked illegally. I'd hate to see a day when the fire department or an ambulance needs to get through. What kills me is that the gentleman who lives directly across from us (and is a major violator) is a police officer.

We checked in with the county and found out that, in order to start being jerks and ticketing/towing people, we need to give ample notice (30 days), have extraordinarily clear signage, and enforce the rules evenhandedly.

30 days notice was given about 45 days ago by a newsletter. The HOA purchased (at significant expense) several additional signs indicating what parking was legal or not (and, installed new ones with balloons on the posts, put them in very conspicuous places where you'd have to almost trip over them, etc.). So far, we've had very little compliance, and a ton of complaints... such as, "Where am I supposed to park?" -- when the answer is, duh, Oh, we don't know, in your garage perhaps? My favorite response to that is, "But what do I do with all of our items in storage?" Apparently, they don't drive six blocks west of us, where there is a huge Public Storage lot.

Today, we've decided that for the next thirty days, we'll be issuing written warnings that vehicles will be towed if they are parked illegally. After thirty days, we're towing them.

So, back to the big picture here, your situation isn't the same as mine. However, the city ordinance is there for some reason, perhaps to protect neighborhood property values, or to prevent someone from using their front yard as a dumping ground for non-working vehicles, etc.

[magenta321]

We have the law here too. Down the street from us there are old houses with 1 car driveways. There's no way they can fit all of their cars on them. They park on the road and on the lawn anyway. I'd rather they were on their lawn, to be honest... it's ugly but, there's less chance I'll hit their parked cars in the winter.

We have a neighbor who uses his bush in his front yard as a stopping block for his car. He's a horrible driver, and for whatever reason he drives into this bush to park his car every time. I dread it when I have to drive behind him. He's my neighbor so I can't spaz behind the wheel. I have to swear at him under my breath and keep my hand gestures where he can't see them.

[Joubert[$]]

Same law here too. Our road is private. You get a warning from the homeowner's association. If it happens again, you begin to get fined. If you don't pay the fine, interest accrues and you get turned over to collections. You also can't sell your house becaue the association dues aren't paid.

I know you haven't heard any solutions that make it seem okay to park on the grass, but I just don't think many communities allow that action.

[emeleel]

Grumblegrumblegrumble

Secretariesneedtolearnwhatthey'retalkingaboutbeforetheytellyourulesoverthephone

Grumblegrumblegrumble

So I call and speak to the actual inspector this morning. Back yard parking, it turn out, is actually just fine and dandy! It's actually a bit of a squeeze to get a car into our back yard because we have a side porch, and the neighbors have a wooden fence, so there is literally ONLY just enough room to squeeze through with a couple inches clearance on each side of the car, but it can be done. Now we just need to figure out how to park two cars back there and not take up all the kids' play area in the process.

[theworm[$]]

Can you run a slide from the roof of the car?

[emeleel]

ROFL! Good idea - we actually don't have a slide at the moment!

[poseidon]

When you squeeze your car into that spot, be sure to set up a webcam. I'm sure we'd all love to see how you GET OUT of the car with only a few inches to spare for the doors to open.

[mtbat]

Jeff the set up of your parking sounds strange, and I'm betting the new rules get chalanged. parking outside your garage is fairly common, especially if you have more than one vehical. It's pretty standard, that the space in front of your garage door, regardless of where you live is considered your "driveway" and parking in your own driveway is legal.

It's not the owners fault that the builders designed the area badly. I live in a townhome complex, everyone parks behind their townhome in their driveway, but there is space to manuver around. What bugs me is the people who park in the visitor parking spots 24/7.

[poseidon]

mtbat said

Jeff the set up of your parking sounds strange, and I'm betting the new rules get chalanged. parking outside your garage is fairly common, especially if you have more than one vehical. It's pretty standard, that the space in front of your garage door, regardless of where you live is considered your "driveway" and parking in your own driveway is legal.

It's not the owners fault that the builders designed the area badly. I live in a townhome complex, everyone parks behind their townhome in their driveway, but there is space to manuver around. What bugs me is the people who park in the visitor parking spots 24/7.

I bet it gets challenged, too, and the challengers will lose.

This is a new complex. Nearly everyone here is an original owner. It was no secret that as the units were being built, parking was limited, nobody would have an individual driveway, and that each unit had standard a two-car garage.

Because each unit has a two-car garage, the "more than one vehicle" excuse is out. We park two vehicles in our garage, and so do other homeowners. Plus, we have room for storage.

I know that, since you're local, you're familiar with Highlands Ranch. Highlands Ranch CC&Rs most certainly state that parking in front of your garage is illegal if it affects traffic flow. Trust me when I tell you that if people are parking in front of their garages, there is barely enough room to get a passenger vehicle past both cars (garages on each side). The fact that emergency vehicles would not be able to get past in that situation (because they are longer and wider) supercedes the "right" of homeowners to park in front of their garages, especially since the driveway is marked as a fire lane by the fire department.

[emeleel]

poseidon said

When you squeeze your car into that spot, be sure to set up a webcam. I'm sure we'd all love to see how you GET OUT of the car with only a few inches to spare for the doors to open.

ROFL - no, no, that's just a space we have to work through on the way TO the back yard! That's not where we would park the car!

[poseidon]

emeleel said

ROFL - no, no, that's just a space we have to work through on the way TO the back yard! That's not where we would park the car!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Okay.