Oswego Councilor Looks To Straighten Out Parking Issues

OSWEGO, NY – The Port City will be taking another look at some parking issues around town.

Councilor Connie Cosemento, Physical Services Committee chair, requested discussion regarding parking in public space.

At this week’s meeting, she proposed amending Section 257-26 D2 of the existing code to include: ‘parking in public space, between the curb and the sidewalk, shall be parallel to the curb and sidewalk, unless otherwise authorized, in accordance with the site plan approved by the Common Council.’

In previous years, when various property owners went to the planning board or ZBA, for permission to use this type of public space for parking, very often the direction of parking was included in the site plan, she said.

Over the years what basically has happened is that more people, different landlords, different tenants … vehicles are now being parked perpendicular over the parking pads and the cars are actually blocking the sidewalk and the road at the same time, she said.

Based on observations and concerns from city residents, parking in public space between the curb and the sidewalk has increased over the years, especially in the most recent years, she pointed out.

Concerns from city residents and city employees include:

• Parking over the sidewalk

• Damage to sidewalks

• Obstruction of driving lane

• Visual obstruction of oncoming traffic at intersections

• Interference of snowplowing and street cleaning

• Complexity of enforcement by the Police Department

• Decline in the esthetics of the neighborhood

• Capacity to park more vehicles than planned, and more

“The intent is to improve the esthetics of the neighborhoods of the city, make the streets safer, save taxpayer money on sidewalk repairs and establish a policy easy to publish to residents and enforce,” she said.

The parking pad is designed for one or two cars. And when you put three or four there you really have increased density. It’s just a complicated set of results that happens, she said. We need to take back control of parking. We are losing some of our city to this; parking is out of control.

This is an attempt to clean it up, Cosemento said.

The committee took no action on the matter. It will go back to code, before it returns to the committee level as a formal resolution. missing or outdated ad config

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