Okay, folks.

We're gonna go ahead and get started.

Okay, let's go ahead and call the afternoon session back to order.

We're gonna move on down to 3.1.

Jennifer Wickman.

Thank you, Mayor.

Jennifer Wickman, deputy city manager.

I'm here to speak to you all today about a presentation that I'm sure is going to be pulled up very soon.

But it's about parking in neighborhoods.

And so we're gonna go over some information which includes and just a little background on where we've been on this before.

We've got uh back in August, um, Chief Jones, thank you, um, came to you all with an informal staff report on commercial vehicle parking violations, and then um on December 16th, there was a future agenda item request from council, and so that's how we're bringing this more sort of broader discussion on this.

We're trying to cover a lot of the issues that you all may get complaints on from residents from your constituents and what you may hear about uh some concerns that they share.

So we'll go through um a few things related to sort of our current ordinances and state code which govern parking in different locations, and also how they govern it based on um the types of vehicles, which is basically size and condition of the vehicle, and then some related elements, and then also want to look at our future and for our current enforcement tools.

So let's think about where um parking is currently allowed.

Article five of our traffic and motor vehicles chapter of our city ordinance um uh lays out general parking requirements on public streets.

So there's a length of time that vehicles can be parked in one location, which is 24 hours.

Um there's some um limits on the location, so clearly they can't be, you know, their proximity to things like fire hydrants or intersections, things like that.

There's also some characteristics um restrictions around the the size of the of the vehicles.

They also must be operational, have current inspection, registration, that sort of thing.

Um there's also a note I have here talking about there's no right to public parking in front of a private property.

So a lot of times we may hear from residents who are very concerned that there is park people parking in front of their home that are not their vehicles.

This is there's no restriction on it, maybe common courtesy within a neighborhood not to park in front of other people's uh homes or or or other property, but that's not in the in anywhere in the law.

Folks who um if if I own a home and I have a certain amount of frontage, I don't own the the right to park there.

Um that's just um sort of common courtesy to leave that or not leave that.

So private parking.

Um so those are all enforced by the police department, the the public, the parking on public streets.

Um parking on private properties enforced by our code enforcement division.

Um generally all vehicles parked on private property has to be on a concrete or asphalt surface.

We also call this an all-weather surface.

So it should not be parked on gravel or on um grass or anything like that.

In the front of the the house, it can be just parked.

If there's parking in the side yard or rear yard, those all should be parked behind a screening fence.

There's also a prohibition even on private property, you can't have something called the junked vehicle.

And that's a vehicle that it may have an expired license plate, doesn't have any license plate, it might be wrecked or dismantled, partially dismantled, uh, or or um you know, inoperable, um, and maybe in 72 consecutive hours or 30 30 consecutive days if it's on private property.

So those are all characteristics of junked vehicles.

We may have seen them in our neighborhoods, but those are sort of the the concerns that you can't you can park a vehicle on your private property, but you can't if it's a junked vehicle.

Um and the all-weather surface, this uh parking requirement applies to uh vehicles, trucks, buses, motorcycles, motor homes, campers, trailers, truck tractors, um, semi-trailers, polch, boats, mobile homes, all those things.

So all those things are considered what have to be parked on improved surfaces in on a private on private property.

So I want to talk a little bit about the definition of commercial vehicles.

This has been the discussion.

A lot of folks we can generally call commercial vehicles, you know, you may have a definition within your own head of what you think that is connected to.

But what we really want to dig into what in our code in our ordinances a commercial vehicle is.

And you can see it really the definition is going to rely on the weight of the vehicle, its transporting capacity, sort of whether it's transporting a large number of people, or also some hazardous materials.

You can see that it's something that's you know, it's it's gross weight of more than 26,000 pounds, it transports more than 15 passengers and also transports hazardous materials.

You can see the the photo in the bottom left.

I've included all the photos that I have in this presentation are either sent to us by residents or have been sent in on the Ask Arlington app.

And there's a there's a gentleman who's got a very sharp eye out there for hazardous vehicles.

Um this was particular one was parked in the in the um parking lot of a closed business, and so he sent this in.

It was indeed a violation, and so he worked with police to kind of get that get that taken care of.

So want to look also at our current parking ordinances.

This this has to do with um, so this 507 A, A and B, and we'll also talk about C in the in the next in the next slide.

But these are really some prohibitions for certain vehicles in certain areas.

So Section A of this this area really deals with certain vehicles by size on certain streets by size.

So vehicles that are longer than 22 feet or taller than eight feet or wider than eight feet cannot be parked on streets that are less than 38 feet.

And 38 feet is generally all of our neighborhood streets that we have, um, sort of those areas.

When you look at section B of this of this part of the ordinance or the chapter, this is a residential district restriction.

So this relates to also those same vehicles which are um of a certain size.

Um they're you know, more than 22 feet long, more than eight feet tall or eight feet wide.

Um they cannot park on in these residential districts.

There's also restrictions on public property, so they can't be parked in the city hall parking lot or on a parks parking lot or in a library parking lot or anything like that.