March 19, 2024

Parking restriction fails following citizen outcry

Citizens voiced their concerns and opinions on parking restrictions proposed for East 16th Street North and Newton City Council listened.

The third consideration of an ordinance to ban parking on the east side of the street between the 400 through 900 blocks failed to gain a motion after several citizens spoke against the proposal at the city council meeting on Monday.

“I’ve lived in my home since 1988 and parking has never really been a problem on this street,” Bonnie Benesh said. “I was kind of shocked to see it come up in the spring.”

Benesh said in her experience, there is never more than three cars parked in the street on any given day or night. As far as parking being a safety concern, she believes there is no issue.

“There used to be a lot of emergency traffic at the house next to me and we’ve had as many as two ambulances, three police cars and one fire truck that were at that house and there was never a problem getting that number of vehicles to that house,” Benesh said. “I can’t imagine there has been any more complex set of vehicles of the emergency type that has come into our neighborhood and it wasn’t a problem them.”

Keith Laube, director of public works, said the city only addresses streets when citizens raise concerns. A notice was given to the city in June about an unspecified issue which lead a survey to be sent out to 40 residences along the road.

Of the 40 survey sent out, seven were returned with four in favor of restricting parking and three against it. The city then reviewed the area and found that having parking on both sides of the street could hinder an emergency vehicle.

“Restricting parking is solely for the purpose of emergency vehicle access,” Laube said. “Our concern was when there are two vehicles parked side-by-side on a 24-foot street, that only leaves about an 8-foot pathway for emergency vehicles.”

Additional considerations for restricting parking are based on where fire hydrants and power poles are located and if there are “T” intersection and multiple driveways along the street.

Newton resident Dave Claseman brought up additional concerns about restricting parking in the area other than how it would effect emergency vehicles.

“Our mailboxes are at the curbside, so if we allow parking on the westside, possibly people could park in front of them, blocking them,” Claseman said. “On our block also a lot of the houses on the east side have single stall garages and shorter driveways, so you are helping them by allowing them to park on our side because we have longer driveways further set back from the road.”

Councilwomen Evelyn George and Lin Chapé also voiced their opinions on the restrictions.

“I drove that street several times in the past week,” George said. “It does jog when it is on the south side but I didn’t see very many cars on the street when I was there.”

She said although it does not seem to be an issue, it is always important to put safety first if necessary.

“I’ve driven up and down that street several times and I didn’t see any parking problems,” Chapé said. “What bothers me with this one is the fact that a survey was done and the responses were four votes to three, just one vote difference.”

The rest of the council agreed with the observations and the ordinance change failed to gain a motion to move forward to a vote and eventually adopting the measure. The ordinance change did pass the first two reading by the council unanimously.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-791-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com