Public lashes out at Parking Committee

A new ordinance draft due in two weeks

Apopka has a parking problem.

That's why the Parking Ordinance Committee was formed and why they have been working on changing it for months. The committee took the next step last night towards finalizing the ordinance draft by taking public comments.

And comment they did.

But before that the committee met in a workshop format and tweaked a couple of items:

1. They discussed the idea of homeowners being allowed to park in front of their own mailboxes, and in front of their own driveways. The criteria would be that the vehicle be registered to the address it is parked in front of.

2. They considered the hours of the mailbox limitation moving from 8am-7pm to 10am-6pm.

3. They discussed refining the idea of parking inside the cul-de-sac.

4. They discussed possible parking relief options for holidays.

During public comments, Apopka resident Allison Varble pointed out it wasn't always this way.

"These problems never existed until 2012," she said. " I have a four-bedroom house with five people and five cars. If these rules and regulations are put in place there will be no place to park at all. I have already relocated my mailbox so I can park in my easement, which is illegal... because I have nowhere else to go. Please tell me what we're supposed to do."

Committee member Jackie Sandler explained the restrictions they were under in their attempt to change the ordinance while balancing public parking concerns with public safety.

"A lot of these rules unfortunately are Florida statutes," she said. "And when you take those and combine them into our neighborhoods that were developed in the eighties they don't play well. But Florida statutes take priority over everything else. When we started, our thought process was yours (the public's). 'Why can't we park in front of our neighborhoods?' We have been parking in front of our houses and walking across driveways for 20 years until 2012. I myself had two parking tickets because my children parked in front of my house... who lived there. I was very upset. So we came with the same thought process as you... but we listened to what the Florida statutes were. We listened to what the City statutes were. We're trying to please everyone, but one size does not fit all. We have to make it easy for patrol officers to go up and down our streets to protect our houses from someone who shouldn't be there. I hope that helps because we have been at this for months."

Apopka resident Benjamin Bankson attended all of the meetings and suggested the committee also look to the future.

"I want to thank you for the massive progress that you've made," Bankson said. "My suggestion is to have parking as a consideration for future developments so that people who are buying homes aren't facing these issues in the future."

Kathleen Ali, a Piedmont Lakes resident, disagreed with the notion of any improvement being made by the committee, and even made an Orwellian reference to describe the parking laws.

"We don't seem to be any closer to a solution than when we started," she said. "The police have their jobs to do, but if I decide to park in front of my mailbox or driveway, leave me alone! I have grown grandchildren, I have children, I have in-laws. They can't fit in my driveway. What am I supposed to do? It just seems like Big Brother is taking over our lives."

Committee member Dan Burrington responded to the public's comments with encouraging words.

"I would like to say that we're a lot closer to finishing this. We've come a long way and we're going to come up with something that works."

Captain Randall Fernandez of the Apopka Police Department facilitated the meeting, and was pleased with the committee's efforts. He also pointed out that the ordinance started out much stricter than its current draft.

"We're going from not being allowed to park on the street at all...to really opening up a lot of places to park on the street. Some reasonable public safety issues have been addressed and I think you have done a tremendous job giving us these ideas to hash out because we're looking for the same things you're looking for. This opens up a lot of places on the street to park now."

The next Parking Ordinance Committee meeting is October 3rd at 6:30pm.

The current draft of the proposed parking ordinance is posted on the City's website. You can use this link to download it.

The rules in the proposed ordinance parallel those establish by the Florida Statues. Use this link to look at those regulations.