Menaces: Four Mile Run Drive and Garages Parking on Residential Street - Laws? Suggestions Needed (Arlington: for sale, HOA)

[Kepella]

We've lived on South Four Mile Run Drive for about 2 years now, and it is a constant battle to find parking after work near my house. I'm often forced to park in front of a neighbor's house (not ideal) and residents are forced farther from their doors by the huge number of customer cars of the repair garages across the street being stored on our street. Not only are they parking cars in disrepair, but the workers will park their personal vehicles on the street during the day and not leave until 7 or 8 at night. I've even watched them drop cars off flatbed tow trucks in front of my house and pick them up 3 weeks later.

The employees spend their lunch breaks in these cars, and throw unspeakable amounts of garbage all along the street. It has been a constant problem since we moved in and it's frustrating seeing the garbage, the new set of strange cars crowding the street every day, and not being able to park my own car near my house.

This is the stretch of road that parallels the main Four Mile Run street, not the main strip on which the garages span. It is a very narrow road and will only allow one car to pass at a time when it is clogged with cars.

I've been researching the area for a proposal, but am curious to know if anyone can site regulations as to parking restrictions on these kinds of streets? I would nominate the area for a study with the Arlington County department of transportation, and there's options to have the area zoned as Permit Parking, but it may be difficult to gain the 60% support of the neighbors to sign the petition, as it requires annual passes (although the first is free). I welcome more information, thank you!

[boyd888]

One thing, which I am sure you realize, is that you are not entitled to park in front of your house on public streets. If you live in a home without off street parking you just have to suck it up. Of course it sucks to have to drive around to find a spot so I definitely agree you on that note. The area will not get approval for zoned permit parking because there are way more spaces than homes and it is not an area commuters park in.

You can't do anything about daytime workers parking there. However, I definitively would report cars that are getting left (especially by tow trucks) for long periods of time. They may be considered "abandoned" and have to be removed to avoid a fine. I would still call the parking enforcement and get their thoughts: https://police.arlingtonva.us/parking/

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by Kepella

We've lived on South Four Mile Run Drive for about 2 years now, and it is a constant battle to find parking after work near my house. I'm often forced to park in front of a neighbor's house (not ideal) and residents are forced farther from their doors by the huge number of customer cars of the repair garages across the street being stored on our street. Not only are they parking cars in disrepair, but the workers will park their personal vehicles on the street during the day and not leave until 7 or 8 at night. I've even watched them drop cars off flatbed tow trucks in front of my house and pick them up 3 weeks later.

The employees spend their lunch breaks in these cars, and throw unspeakable amounts of garbage all along the street. It has been a constant problem since we moved in and it's frustrating seeing the garbage, the new set of strange cars crowding the street every day, and not being able to park my own car near my house.

This is the stretch of road that parallels the main Four Mile Run street, not the main strip on which the garages span. It is a very narrow road and will only allow one car to pass at a time when it is clogged with cars.

I've been researching the area for a proposal, but am curious to know if anyone can site regulations as to parking restrictions on these kinds of streets? I would nominate the area for a study with the Arlington County department of transportation, and there's options to have the area zoned as Permit Parking, but it may be difficult to gain the 60% support of the neighbors to sign the petition, as it requires annual passes (although the first is free). I welcome more information, thank you!

Attachment 171746

Don't discount that 60% approval just yet. Its very frequent for neighborhoods father north to approve of that permit system in order to push out cars that aren't owned by nearby properties. It's only applicable during the daytime, which should do the trick. Surely enough neighbors are just as torqued up about the issue as you are these days.

Good luck and I'm sure Arlington is very familiar with how the permit process works for new implementation.

[The Dissenter]

I wouldn't get my hopes up on Arlington County doing anything about it. I live in the area on the other Four Mile Run Dr closer to Columbia Pike and we are having a major problem with people parking in no parking zones after the "no parking here to corner" signs. It gets particularly bad on weekends. Some of these cars are even parking next to hydrants, which is of concern because we have had fires in my building which have required several fire trucks to respond the last couple of years. I've reported it several times to Arlington County police and these cars rarely get ticketed. We have the same problem with "abandoned" cars as well.

[Kepella]

Thank you all for your feedback! It doesn't sound like there's any restrictions at the moment for the street parking with which I could solicit the garages. I know many of the neighbors take issue with the parking problem, and the garbage that accumulates from these people who don't care where they throw their cigarette packs and condoms. Considering the first permit for every house is free, it may not be as difficult to rally support, but the area then needs to pass the study.

Trying to do a search for ordinances hasn't proven too helpful since they do have the zoned parking option in the county so other designations are really lacking. There's only one sign for no commercial vehicle parking, but I don't think it applies to businesses and their customers' cars. Will keep digging, hopefully some others can share their experiences and successes in taking back the streets!

[frostopsy]

Why not try and be neighborly and talk to the owners of the garage before going out and getting permit parking zoned. Do you really think another fine is worth it? I would talk to the garages and address at the very least the garbage being thrown out into the street. There's ways to get problems solved before getting the local government involved.

[Carlingtonian]

You should email one of the Board members. Try John Vihstadt; I emailed him and got a response on which he cc'd County staffers.

I suspect that your only options are to get the neighbors to request the street be turned into zoned parking (which will mean you all have to pay for permits to park in front of your own house) or that you all buy some old vehicles and park them in front of your houses for months. As long as the cars are plated, registered and have the required county tax sticker, they need not move for a long time.

Talking to the shop owners will probably do no good; the employees park there because those are the only free spots, now the the County has so thoughtfully put meters along that stretch. The owners are just going to say there's nothing they can do.

[BOS2IAD]

I live in LoCo and our community got a permit parking district---and it wasn't easy. A 6 month process got dragged out to 3 1/2 years.

Take Carlingtonian's advice as he is very familiar with Arlington County.

That said, it sounds like you aren't part of an HOA. Our community is part of one so gathering the necessary signatures was much easier as our HOA boards took the bull by the horns.

In the meantime---here are some things you can do to help alleviate the situation --- If any cars have expired inspection stickers, expired county stickers or expired tags or are missing any of those things, call the police and have the offending vehicles ticketed. Also, if any cars have "for sale" signs on them, report that. From the sound of it, I take it that no homes on your street have driveways. If I'm wrong, any car even partially blocking a driveway can be ticketed..

OP---I wish you the best of luck with getting a permit parking district. I know what your community is going through, as our problems were of a similar nature.

[cully]

In another area where we lived we had the same...garage causing the main problem, etc.

Yes, it was a public street.

But, yes, public. Meaning at that point the garage had essentially utilized it for some time as their private street. They had the same parking spots for their employees and their tow vehicles and their vehicles waiting on repairs for some time. Meaning they were using this public area as their private parking lot.

So the real public of the public street got together against the garage. They involved local leaders, politicians, petition, pointed out businesses and residents are hampered and cannot do good business and cannot enjoy their homes on a regular basis (which is the key since parking every so often is not an offense) and the garage owners should be paying someone for a lot and paying muni taxes on such a lot for their business....and eventually the garage owner stopped what he had allowed. He found other spaces that he did pay for and paid the city taxes on what he had like a good businessman.

[leighland]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

You should email one of the Board members. Try John Vihstadt; I emailed him and got a response on which he cc'd County staffers.

...

+1

I wouldn't call Parking Enforcement at all...