By Richard Kaufman
Sentinel Reporter
After years of disorganization and uncertainty surrounding aspects of Greenwich’s parking code, the town is taking steps towards cleaning up the books.
Last week at Town Hall, Capt. Mark Kordick of the Greenwich Police Department, who is currently serving as the interim director of the town’s Parking Services Department, briefed the Board of Selectmen on the ongoing efforts to clarify parking code and asked the Board to approve several changes.
“Since I’ve started in the department of parking services last month, we’ve noticed kind of an upsetting trend with respect to the lack of accuracy in certain parts of the town code as they relate in particular to parking,” Kordick said. “Most of the [inaccuracies] appear to be [due to] drafting or typographical errors. Some of them are due to changes that have occurred in town.”
Kordick noted that there are many changes that need to be made, and 90 percent of them are non-controversial. However, one instance revolving around Greenwich High School and Hillside Road has become somewhat controversial.
Kordick and Traffic Operations Coordinator, Melissa Evans, asked the Board to codify a 1991 ruling which allowed for permit parking alongside Hillside Road, and a 1995 Planning and Zoning Commission ruling which recognized the parking as part of Greenwich High’s inventory. While permit parking is allowed, and it’s signed as such, there is no evidence of the 1991 ruling in the current town code.
Kordick and Evans also asked the Selectmen to consider changing a 130-foot stretch of visitor parking to something more enforceable.
“There’s no good definition of what visitor parking is. We can accomplish what the high school wants, which is short-term parking in the area, by just simply resigning it to two hour timed parking,” Kordick said. “So, it becomes public parking available for anyone to park in two hours at a time, and it sort of takes away the ambiguity associated with what is an actual visiting parking space.”
However, the Selectmen indicated that they were not yet ready to make changes at Hillside Road. Instead, they plan to speak with the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Education to get more information.
Residents at Two Hillside Road spoke out against the parking situation near the high school. Elizabeth Dempsey voiced frustration over the fact that she pays high taxes in a residential zone when she believes it should be classified as a commercial zone.
“This is not necessarily about me having a parking spot on the street,” Dempsey said. “Everyone gets value of that site, but not us, and we’re taxed to the highest hilt that the town gives, and yet the conditions in which we live across are not residential.”
Ashley Cole said the constant traffic, both from students during the work week and church-goers on Sundays, is putting property values and quality of life at stake.
“We have a parking problem and a traffic problem on Hillside Road. Something needs to be done, but what does not need to be done is to codify the current situation just make it permanent,” Cole said. “I think the street should belong to the neighbors and to the residents.”
First Selectman, Peter Tesei, urged Kordick and Evans to come back on January 25th, at the next Board of Selectmen meeting to possibly act on the Hillside Road matter.
Aside from Hillside Road, the Selectmen voted unanimously to make several changes to the parking code last Thursday.
One change involved eliminating individual handicap spaces on public property which currently exist in the code but not in real life. Kordick noted that when people have moved or passed away, there’s been no real mechanism in place to go back and revise the code books.
“One of my favorite things is there’s still language in the parking code which predates the handicap parking law in Connecticut,” Kordick said. “There’s a reserved parking part of the code that references a lady who used to live in Armstrong Court. They made a reserved parking spot for what’s identified in the code as her 1968 Dodge Coronet. I’m pretty sure I know she’s not around anymore, and I don’t think her ’68 Coronet is either.”
Another change included the deletion of conflicting language related to the Penn Central Railroad Bridge over Sound Beach Ave. In the ordinance book, the area is marked as both a no-parking zone and a two-hour timed zone. Kordick said the correct signage should reflect no-parking.
The Selectmen also approved the elimination of a no-parking zone on Steamboat Road where Manero’s Restaurant used to be.
This is likely just the beginning for Kordick and the rest of the Parking Services team. Tesei urged Kordick to return in future meetings in order to go through the list of changes that need to be made.
“We need to engage in a project to start at the top of this and go to the end and fix things,” Kordick said. “A review of the entire code desperately needs to occur.”
