North Adams to Ticket Parking Scofflaws in Greylock Valley
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Residents of Greylock Valley Apartments are being put on notice that their cars will be ticketed if they're not parked in the appropriate spots.
Williams Schrade, operations manager of the North Adams Housing Authority, formally asked the Traffic Commission on Monday for help with policing drivers who were parking on the green space between the street and sidewalk in the housing project. He had approached the commissioners last month about putting in on the agenda.
"The last seven years, it has gotten progressively worse," he told the commission on Monday. "I really don't want to be the bad guy and ask the police to ticket, but it really is a nightmare."
The last significant snow resulted in some cars being towed because they were hampering efforts to clear the street and sidewalks, he said.
The city is responsible for maintaining the streets and the authority clears the parking lots and sidewalks.
Schrade said there are 117 parking spots for 96 units, but believes there are only about 30 or so vehicles in the apartment complex at a time. It's not a matter of finding parking but the tenants finding it more convenient to inch their vehicles closer to their units.
"First it was two wheels on the grass, then all of it on the grass and then on the sidewalk," he said. "It's all because they don't want to park in the parking lot.
"It's been a huge challenge for us."
Chairwoman MaryAnn King said she has spoken with the city solicitor, who confirmed the green space was considered part of the sidewalk. The mayor and police director agreed that ticketing should occur — as long as the tenants are notified prior to it beginning.
Schrade said he would notify them. He had also made sure they all knew about the Traffic Commission meeting, he said, but no one from Greylock Valley attended.
The sidewalk parking has been occurring year round and is killing the grass as well as creating plowing obstacles.
"Two days of 50 degrees and they're parking on mud," said Commissioner David Sacco. "They're ruining the property."
Ticketing will begin on Friday for any vehicles parked on the green or sidewalk, the commissioners agreed.
They were also informed of a complaint about the lack of a curb ramp near the handicapped parking spot at the east end of Main Street. King said a resident who frequently brings to elderly relatives to Moulton's Spectacle Shoppe finds she has to walk them around a vehicle in the loading area of Supreme Pizza to access the lowered curb at the Eagle Street intersection.
Commissioner Paul Markland, the city's highway foreman, said the curb is high and was not addressed during the reconstruction of the street several years ago. Creating a blacktop ramp would push it out 4 feet into the road for the required incline, he said, but he would look into it.
Tags: Housing Authority, parking, traffic commission,
