I’m trying and failing to get a mental picture of what exactly the driveway and parking violations in this story consists of. Does anyone have a picture of a driveway like the one mentioned in the story and how a person’s car could be illegally parked if entirely contained within their own driveway?
At a guess, the driveway is asphalt leading back to the garage, with a wide unpaved area for turning around, extra space for guests, etc. From the linked article, “Mayor Finkbeiner said residents who were ticketed in fact broke the law for parking on a part of a drive that was not paved.”
Sounds like a BS ordinance to me, but that’s for the good people of Toledo to deal with.
it is unfortunate the article did not cite the law banning such parking.
In looking at a google earth street view of Holland-Sylvania road I notice the sidewalks on this road are set quite a ways back from the road. Is the “turn around” the portion of the driveway they are discussing that part which protrudes past the sidewalk?
Try not with the mental picture when google maps is available.
Linky
I think I can tell were the cars were ticketed ,but nothing definite
Declan
It’s a little unclear to me as well, but in many cities you are not allowed to park on any unpaved area, even if it is your own property.
It’s to keep people from parking on the lawn.
This is a law in Phoenix, also.
Cars must be parked on a “dust-free surface.”
Generally this is used to keep people from collecting junk cars around their house - it’s pretty effective, too.
As God is my witness I saw someone being ticketed for this just last night, down my street.
In looking to the right of that street view shotdirectly down the person’s (house with 2 white garage doors side by side) driveway (you can pull the view around) I think I (maybe) get it. The “turnaround” section of the drive is a semi-circular area etched into the grass near the house where residents re-orient their cars to be facing forward when they exit their driveways on to the busy road. It is off the paved section of the driveway and is assumedly gravel or grass-dirt.
It may be that there are homes in the area using well water. Even a tiny amount of motor oil entering the aquifer can make the water unsafe to drink. Many areas where well water is used have these rules about parking only on paved areas. It helps keep the oil contained.
Until it rains, of course. :rolleyes:
Goodness! If that was an ordinance in Green Bay, where I grew up, the police would make a KILLING! For Packer games, people park cars on their front lawns and charge anywhere from $10 to $20 per spot. And if you can get 5 cars on your lawn, that’s $100 per game! Every front yard within a half mile of Lambeau Field is covered in cars!
Ok, I’m not good enough with Google’s street view to make my own link, but if you go to 2710 N. Holland-Sylvania Rd., which is a bit south of where the above links are, you will see an example of what I think is being talked about. The story isn’t clear as to exactly where on Holland-Sylvania the houses were, but they were close to the intersection with Dorr St., a place I know well from having good friends live right around the corner, and one of my fav. bars just down Dorr St.
Carty Finkbeiner is an idiot; he’s the mayor who once famously proposed settling deaf people in the houses that had become uninhabitable because of increased noise levels from the expansion of the city’s airport. :rolleyes:
Are they taking about parking in those little triangular patches at the end of driveways (like this one) which appear to be between the sidewalk and the road? Perhaps people were making use of them for sneaky on-street parking.
No, those are “aprons”; not what they’re referring to. You can have a paved apron with an unpaved driveway.
A resident posted comments on that article and states it’s people parking all over their lawn. Often multiple cars are parked on the lawn. The city has an ordinance against this.
That’s contrary to what the article stated, that people were ticketed for parking on their own driveway.
Yes. So? Do you think the article’s writer is above writing it in a way to attract readers?
Read the comments under the article to get a better idea of what is happening. Granted there is a lot of clutter in the comments.
Are they ticketing cars, or ticketing the house? There’s a very fine distinction. The car is on private property, where you can do things like drive drunk, not have tags, or even a drivers license, all legally. How do you ticket a tagless car?
On the other hand, if they’re ticketing the house, then it’s no different than any other property ordinance violation. Grass too tall? Watering during a declared emergency? And so on.
The (Toledo) Blade article on the flap.
We were just a bit too far north. The area in question was recently redone by the city. There is a picture in the Blade article that shows the graveled areas in question.
This started with someone complaining. Given the picture in the Blade, I can understand the complaint: people in the area are parking multiple vehicles in the front of the homes, sometimes side by side by side. The complaint gets handed off to the city’s Commissioner of Streets, Bridges and Harbors, who, it turns out, was granted the right to ticket vehicles violating the City’s codes. She observes the vehicles are not on pavement, and since she is a prior code enforcement manager, realizes this is technically illegal. So she proceeds to cite the vehicles. Brouhaha ensues.
Typical Toledo. 