Council seeks parking code change

TOLEDO, Ohio - Several council members are seeking a change in the Toledo Municipal Code weeks after several residents were ticketed by the city for parking on unpaved gravel driveways.

Since Sue Frederick, Acting Commissioner for the city's division of Streets, Bridges and Harbor, enforced the code back in June, Councilman D. Michael Collins said the move was a ridiculous embarrassment for the city and the residents who live inside its borders.

"It's embarrassing," Councilman Collins said. "This has made not only national news, but international news, and this was a lack of good judgment."

Councilman Collins, along with Councilmen Tom Waniewski and George Sarantou, want to make sure Toledoans won't have to pay for parking on their private property ever again.

"I have been called by residents several times because they are in fear, they think they will be ticketed, and they're being treated like criminals for just parking on their lawn or driveway," Councilman Waniewski said.

Toledo Municipal Code states that residents can be ticketed for parking in their own driveway, even if its not paved. The three councilmen said that wasn't the intention of the law.

The outcry for change comes Frederick issued citations along Holland-Sylvania Road in Toledo's South End. Residents were fined $25 by Frederick for parking on their unpaved drives.

Though a city ordinance, passed in 1991, states that vehicles should be parked on a paved drive, Collins, Waniewski and Sarantou hope to change the rule they call rediculous.

"We need to lower fears for Toledo residents," Councilman Sarantou said. "Inspectors should not be dealing with this. There are real issues for inspectors. I get calls for things like rats in the backyard, garbage outside, and tall grass not being cut in months."

If approved, it will be legal to park in an unpaved residential driveway. The measure will be brought up at the Aug. 3 council meeting at One Government Center. It would need seven votes to pass.

If the measure is approved, that doesn't mean you can just make crazy changes. You would have to get permission from the city's zoning commission.

"You couldn't just, hypothetically, take a driveway and make it a whole front yard," Councilman Collins said. "The code is very specific. Only 40 percent of the front yard may be used as a driveway."

Residents driveways have to meet code - paved or unpaved - and it would still be illegal to park your vehicle in your front yard.

"This protects the integrity of the neighborhood and at the same time provides for those residents who currently lives on properties that have been annexed by the city," Councilman Collins said. "So, they don't have the fear of getting a ticket."