So, the Mayor was out of town for the last meeting and I was fortunate enough to wield the gavel.  I run a mean business meeting brothers.  We're either votin' or adjourning….enough talking!  

In all seriousness, we had very little on the agenda and had to adjourn for a bit before citizens time.  During citizens time a nice lady who lives near Point of Woods came to address the council.  She indicated that she was 1 block from POW and had tremendous problems with folks from that area parking in their development.  Not just 1 or 2 cars either.  This isn't the first I've heard of this: there are so many individuals living in POW that the built-in parking isn't anywhere near sufficient to handle the number of cars.  If you drive down Liberia or Stonewall road the cars are just nose to tail the whole way.  I've had folks that live in the single family houses along that road tell me they can't park in their driveways as they can't see to get out of them.  I'm very surprised there haven't been more accidents although I believe in the last year 2 people have been run over on Liberia….

I don't want to single POW out as the problem is present in other parts of the city as well.  Most of our townhouse developments were built with a parking ratio of somewhere around 1.8–2.0 cars per unit.  Based on what I see that's pretty much out the window.  And it's not limited to townhouses and/or apartments!  I've gotten complaints that some single-family houses are overcrowded and in order to conceal it, renters park in adjoining commercial developments and walk back to the house!  This was the case over on Oakenshaw a couple of months ago.

The real question is what to do about all of this.  It's pretty clear it's getting to the point where it's in the public interest to do something but I'm not sure what, if anything, to do.  I also worry about public safety.  I was over at Sumner Lake when the big fire happened and if we had a similar event in any of these areas, it looks, to my amatuer eye, like it would be difficult to get the trucks where they need to be.  

I suppose we could "no-park" large swaths of through roads like Liberia in an effort to keep it clear but that is pretty drastic.  It also won't work unless parking districts are created in adjoining developments to control overflow parking.  All valid ideas and might be appropriate to explore.  Somewhere, someone else has already fried this fish: we just need to do some homework.

However, what I really struggle with is this: what is fair?  Certainly parking ratios of 1.8 set certain expectations in terms of number of cars, residents and numbers of kids in schools.  We would appear to above those but is it fair to those residents living in those townhouses to take action of this sort?  They're taxpayers too.  On the other hand, is it fair to the taxpayers that live in other parts of the city to not take action?  Isn't it incumbent upon the developments to address their parking issues?  Certainly the streets are public but does that mean they're available to accomodate the problems of individuals?  This level of utilization is having a demonstrable negative effect on the city and the Council must consider th health of the City as a whole….right?