The College Park City Council discussed a proposal Tuesday that would eliminate free parking on streets near Knox Box apartments in favor of permit-restricted spaces for Knox Box and Graduate Gardens residents.
The controversial proposal, brought by a Knox Box landlord, found support with Knox Box residents who want to secure parking spaces on narrow streets perpetually crammed with cars. Critics argue the proposal doesn’t provide for visitor parking and eliminates parking options for students who live in nearby apartment complexes, such as College Park Towers.
If the proposal passes in two weeks, when the council is expected to make a decision, all vehicles parked on the streets within the area bordered by Route 1, Guilford Drive and Knox Road, which also includes a portion of Hartwick Road, would be required to purchase a permit from the city.
“The permit parking is, in some ways, an issue of safety,” said District 3 Councilman Andrew M. Fellows, who introduced the proposal Tuesday. “We want to have residents that are mostly students be able to park as close to their homes as possible.”
Though many council members did not indicate whether they would vote for or against the proposal, Fellows said many support it.
The new rule, which could go into effect as early as the fall semester, would initially offer the permits exclusively to Knox Box tenants, allottingone 6-month permit per unit for $5 each, said Jim Miller, the city’s parking enforcement supervisor.
A vote on the proposal was delayed until next week because the fire department requested that the council eliminate parking on the northern one-way section of Knox Road, prompted by difficulties fire crews experienced when navigating the narrow street during Tuesday morning’s fire. The suggestion would “probably be integrated into the proposal,” Fellows said.
If parking in that area is eliminated, six Knox Box units would not be offered a permit, Miller said. But the city could change the proposal so residents who already have accommodations for off-street parking would not be offered street parking permits, he said.
“Five of the Knox Box properties have at least six spaces for parking,” Miller said.
Janet Firth, landlord of more than half of the Knox Boxes, lobbied for the proposal when she submitted a petition to the council asking for the regulations. Firth confirmed in a phone call Wednesday that she was behind the petition but declined further comment.
“The council took the model of what was created with the fraternities in Old Town [College Park],” said Miller, adding that the city normally offers full-year permits at the same price to homeowners in most permit-restricted neighborhoods in the city. “For the fraternities and Knox Boxes, living arrangements are usually more temporary.”
Similar to the permit restrictions in Old Town, visitors will purchase temporary passes from city hall, councilman Fellows said.
Many Knox Box residents say the proposal would be a good solution for their parking woes.
“People in the Knox Boxes never park here [on the street], because there’s never any spots,” said Ben Strumpf, a sophomore business major who lives in an apartment on the corner of Knox Road and Rossburg Drive. “It’s all random people parking that don’t live here.”
Residents of Graduate Gardens, who are now experiencing a parking shortage, could also receive some relief if the proposal is approved, said College Park Mayor Stephen A. Brayman during the council meeting.
“Any remaining parking permits would be exclusively available to graduate students during a set period of time,” Brayman said.
One graduate student, in an e-mail the mayor read aloud at the meeting, praised the portion of the proposal that would offer unclaimed permits, priced at $5 a year, exclusively to Gardens residents.
Residents of College Park Towers and the apartment complex’s site manager, however, criticized the proposal, saying it makes already scarce parking even harder to find for residents and virtually eliminates visitor parking in the area.
“Some of the kids want options for parking and for their guests to park,” said Kenneth Gibbs, the site manager.
Gibbs posted memos in the lobbies of both College Park Towers buildings Monday encouraging “owners and residents to participate in mass numbers to oppose this resolution,” but no students showed up at the meeting to criticize the proposal.
Towers residents received one parking permit per apartment for free this year, but will have to pay $250 next year, Gibbs said. Next year, they can attempt to win one of about 50 leftover permits in a lottery – if they’re willing to pay $850.
For Sophomore Marc Gimbel, whose roommate uses the permit allotted to his Towers apartment, parking is already a daily struggle. He parks on Hartwick Road whenever he can find a spot, which is about 30 percent of the time, he said.
“I drive up and down the street and, when not finding one, I have to park across Route 1,” he said.
Private lots, including one near Santa Fe Café and one behind the Hartwick Office Building, are an alternative to street parking, but they offer limited space. For instance, only one row of spaces is reserved for student permits in Hartwick’s lot.
“I have a permit at the Santa Fe lot this year,” said senior Lauren Levine, who lives in the Towers. “It’s really not that bad, and it’s only $75 per month.”
Fellows agreed parking is a problem for Towers residents, but said that doesn’t mean they are entitled to free street parking.
“It’s not the city’s responsibility to provide parking for people in the Towers,” said Fellows.
James Kane, who owns two Knox Box apartments, also criticized the proposal, because it doesn’t address the visitor parking issue. He said in the meeting that the petition was flawed because it was issued by “one owner of many Knox Boxes,” not by residents.
“There’s already a problem with visitor parking,” said Kane. “When you remove parking from the street, you’re going to push [the problem] somewhere else.”
Before the meeting Tuesday, his company, Kane Contractors Inc., placed fliers on the vehicles of windshields parked in the area, urging people to protest the proposal because “the city will use permit parking to impose more fines on residents and guests,” the flier said.
Miller said if the proposal passes, the city will begin enforcement after a grace period of between 10 days and two weeks after the beginning of the fall semester. During that period, warnings would be issued to vehicles parked without a permit.
The city makes enough street parking spaces available so 70 percent of College Park residents who live in areas with parking restrictions can get permits, Miller said. But the proposal for the Knox Box area wouldn’t offer spots to such a large majority of people.
“Right now, we’re looking at a parking shortage in the area,” he said. “These aren’t single-family homes … This is a whole different beast we’re dealing with.”
Contact reporter Mark Milian at newsdeskdbk@gmail.com.
