Yard parking ordinance passes final vote

WASHINGTON — A city ordinance governing where, how long and when vehicles can park in residential yards has passed its final vote of approval. The code amendment allows off-street parking for up to 24 hours at a time in front yards, but permits vehicles — including trailers — to stay on concrete, asphalt or gravel parking pads in side and backyards indefinitely. Vehicles in driveways are not subject to the restrictions.

The changes also amend Washington’s definition of an operable vehicle, requiring that such cars, trucks and trailers have a valid registration and be capable of moving both backward and forward.

Now set to take effect once published as a public notice, the code amendment’s passage ends months of back-and-forth over an issue that started as a neighborly dispute, but grew into a contentious citywide debate.

While the ordinance implements new rules for vehicles on parking pads in front yards, City Administrator Joe Gaa said early enforcement efforts would focus primarily on getting cars off the grass.

“Where people are currently parked when this ordinance goes into effect, is it, ‘In a yard,’ meaning (in the) grass?” he said. “If so, we need to work with those people to remedy that. And that doesn’t mean pour a parking lot, it means pour a parking pad. We’re not so much worried at this point about how things look as getting them out of the yards.”

Municipal officials have said several times in the monthslong debate that the code would balance city beautification goals with property owners rights to do as they please with their own land.

The now-approved proposal was the latest in a line of revisions since discussion on the matter started in February. A first draft at the time was tabled and sent to a committee for major revisions, before a second attempt failed thanks to an eleventh-hour no vote that, combined with an absence and vacant council seat at the meeting, prevented its passage.

On Oct. 15, the amendments passed 5-1, despite getting unanimous votes of approval at earlier readings. Council Member Illa Earnest was the lone vote against. She said the new law was unfair to property owners who had already undertaken the expense of front-yard parking pads, which are not protected by the amended code unless they’re part of a driveway.

“I know several places where there’s people parked in front of their (houses,) but we have to give them an option,” Earnest said. “And I don’t have the answer exactly yet, but we need to figure it out.”

Other community members are also unhappy about the changes.

Washington residents Bob and Mary Ann have long called for an ordinance that limits the number of trailers in yards, not just the places they can park. The two have argued at numerous council meetings this year that similar proposals didn’t go far enough, or couldn’t be fairly enforced.

“The city is deteriorating due to all of the junk sitting around,” Mary Ann Minick said at one meeting’s public comment period Aug. 6. “From the very beginning, our concern was never limited to the view of trailers looking out our window. We have always expressed concern to the city at-large … clutter creep is coming to your neighborhood.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com