Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Parking issues?

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hello Fern!

I feel your pain.

Here at Takoma Village in Washington DC we have one parking place per household 
with no additional parking on site at all.  During the week Street parking is 
restricted to the neighborhood so non-neighborhood residents have to have a 
pass to park on the street longer than two hours. Each of us also have a pass 
that allows on street parking for a guest. But Street parking is not always 
available.

About five of our households gave up their cars because we live so close to the 
metro. A couple of them rent their spaces. But the other three are available 
for people to use for guests or for workers.   Residents can reserve these 
parking places via our on line calendar.

If you don't have the capability of creating an online calendar for parking or 
adding parking to your existing calendar if you have one then why not create a 
sign-up sheet on your bulletin board that would allow people to indicate what 
days of the month or week their space will be available for use by others?  

Sometimes none of the regularly available spaces are available. In that case I 
simply put out a request for a parking place to the community via our email. 
Inevitably someone has a parking place I can use. Even on short notice. 

Plus – – some people drive to work so I know that between certain hours the 
space is available so it's OK to park there as long as my guest has moved their 
car by the time the resident gets home.  It's best to get agreement that you 
can do this with the resident in advance however.  No surprises!

Hope this helps!

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington DC

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 15, 2016, at 1:48 AM, Fern Selzer/US/CA/95003/NBC via Cohousing-L 
> <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> hi everyone
> 1. We have limited parking with virtually no  guest spaces.   We are 
> struggling to find a plan that will allow guests/temporary workers  to use 
> the spaces that are not being used by members because they only have one car, 
> are at work, etc.  (Most members are willing to share an unused space, others 
> aren't willing at all)
> 
> One idea we have thought of is having parking signs on some of the spots that 
> show the hours when they are available for guests.    I'm afraid those signs 
> may walk away though.
> 2. We have a few people with extra cars ( like vans or electric cars).   I'm 
> wondering how other communities accommodate special needs like this.
> 3.  Do you have rules about how long people can have an unused/disabled car 
> in the lot?   Some say, "it's my allocated space, I can do what I want with 
> it"  Some of us would like to limit the amount of time a car can be there 
> without a repair plan, since we don't allow other types of storage in the 
> parking lot.  For example, right now we have a car that has been sitting for 
> over a year in the lot.
> 
> 
> 
> Any thoughts?
> Thanks,
> Fern
> New Brighton Cohousing, Aptos, CA
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