City passing parking laws on students

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activestudent

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The local city council and mayor are attempting to pass a law making it illegal to park on the streets in a 10 square block area only 3 blocks south of a University Campus. The attempt is to prevent students from parking on the streets, as a few locals have made complaints about the issue. Students will then be charged a monthly fee to park on the street in the range of about $50 per month. The issue is that most students are not registered voteres in the state due to their transitory nature in the area and most students own a car with insufficient parking space due to old complexes under old zoning laws. If passed, the law will cause students to have to park long distances from their apartments and campus, and students feel this law is being passed regardless of student feelings. The council is not allowing students to discuss the matter at their meetings. Is there any legal action we can take?
 
I imagine there is a public comment period before any meeting. You and your friends can voice opposition at that time.

However, how are they going to differentiate between student and non student parkers? Are they having a residential parking permit process?

This is a common solution to parking problems near a university campus. The locals like to be able to park their cars without having to walk several blocks to their own homes. When it comes down to it, the students are the easier of the two groups (residents and students) to alienate.

- Carl
 
I understand how students are the easier of the two to alienate, but the issue is that the University has a policy that students must live within 2 miles of the university. The parking issue is mainly that students have hardly any room to park for their own homes. With the street being restricted, the students would be paying even more money when we all know that students can hardly make any cash :) Or else they will be forced to park long distances from their homes and have to make a trip each day. The parking permits will be sold to the public by the county office, and there will be no differentiation between student and residents, although residents will be given one free permit per household. As far as citizens living in this area, they are in the minority, and the city has done an excellent job dividing up the districts to ensure that those students who are now residents don't have strong enough voting power.
 
Also, they do have a public comment period, but at the last meeting which was held a few days ago the Council told us that they had no room in their agenda (or any future agendas for that matter) to discuss the issue and continued on. We then requested a meeting with the Mayor or somebody else that could discuss the issue, to which we were denied with the reply that they are all too busy working on the city budget....
 
Now, you say residential households will get one free permit? Well, that seems fair from the outside. Students who are residents should have the same consideration, right? Or, is this free permit not available to local renters in multiple unit housing (apartments, frats, etc.)? Of course, I'll bet that many of those residents have more than one car, and unless they actually park their cars in their garages or driveways a lot o flocals will be having to fork out for permits, too.

In general, issues brought up during public comment cannot be acted upon by the council because they would no have been properly agendized. If you wish to change the municipal code authorizing these residential parking permits and rules, you will need to find out the process in your city to revisit the issue. In essence, you will likely have to make it sufficiently "hot" for some of the local politicians. You can go for a petition, but since as you say most the students are not locally registered voters, their say is really not going to have a lot of oomph.

I suspect the only way you can get some movement in your direction is to take action, sign petitions, get media coverage, and try and get some local residents and politicians on your side as well. That may not be easy, but it may be the only chance you'll have to get the permits dropped. Otherwise, everyone can budget for a dozen fewer 6-packs over the year and fork out for a $50 permit.

- Carl
 
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