At the Weems town hall meeting several people talked about the problems they are encountering with parking of heavy vehicles on residential streets.  I’ve taken a run at this issue a few times by googling and compiling some interesting pages on different ordinances but I have yet to really come up with an approach that makes much sense.  Some people have suggested enacting an ordinance that limits the number of cars a single dwelling can have on a public street but that approach kinda weirds me out and may have significant unintended consequences.  Another ordinance I found online prohibits the parking of ANY commercial vehicles in residential areas.  That seems a shade overbearing as you couldn’t even park a company car with a logo on the street outside your house.

As I see it, the problem that we are trying to curb is jammed streets in our neighborhoods.  I’ve driven around the City and have seen the problems but I’m still looking for more input.  Does anyone have more input on the kinds of problems they are seeing or links for other ordinances so I can try to put together something better?

I have started and stopped this post more times than I can count. Back when I was writing newspaper columns that was usually a bad sign but I believe this to be important so I’m going to take a final stab at it. Please forgive me if this sounds schizophrenic or unfocused but that is sort of where I am with this issue right now.

Let me start with this: Demolition by Neglect is when a property owner does not maintain their property and allows it to fall into such a state of disrepair that it becomes, more or less, uninhabitable. People do this for many reasons: Sometimes they don’t have the money to maintain it and sometimes their motives are less clear. It is an issue fraught with pitfalls ranging from spending public money to stabilize private property to government siezure of private property. When an issue is this hairy you generally find two kinds of governmental responses: The first is a strong law that provides for citizen review and possible courses of action that include fines and/or condemnation. The second is more along the lines of “We’re going to send you mean letters.” The second rarely accomplishes much for truly recalcitrant owners but will often produce some results amongst others. As with most issues, I believe that you must first start with a pragmatic and not a philosphical starting point: What business of it of the government’s to get involved in this at all? Is it some notion of public interest or are there just “some people” who don’t like to see old buildings destroyed?

All that being said, let us look at our own Home Town. Why does the government care here? In my view, the answer is best phrased in terms of a question: “What is it that Manassas has that places like Gainseville, Haymarket and Centreville don’t have?” Do we have upscale retail? A fancy regional mall? A compelling combination of these? The answer is, of course, that we have none of these (yet). We have Old Town. Old Town is, more or less, our hook and Old Town (and the surrounding area) is filled with old buildings and old houses. Is this sufficient “public interest” for the governement to get more involved? I want to say yes but the property issues give me pause. I suppose I don’t mind the government spending some limited amount of public money to stabilize structures (and placing a lien on them to get the money back) but even that doesn’t sound like an idea that I am entirely comfortable with.

All of this is brought on by the damage to the house on Liberty street – right accross from the Museum. There is also a house over on Presoctt and Quarry that has been deemed “historically significant” that is currently falling down. This has been in the paper quite a bit and I think that the issue deserves some more attention by the City Council. What does everyone out there think?