✕
☰

Inverness Cove residents upset over proposal to make their streets one-way

by

Numerous residents from the Inverness Cove community showed up at the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission tonight, opposed to a plan to make several streets in their neighborhood one-way streets.

The Inverness Cove Residential Association sought the change in an effort to solve a problem of too many people parking on both sides of the street, making traffic flow difficult. But numerous residents tonight spoke against the plan and said it wouldn’t really solve the problem.

Residents said they’ve been having trouble with people parking on both sides of the street for a long time. The streets in the 190-home community are so narrow that it frequently is difficult to move down the street and back out of driveways, residents said.

Parking on the street is against the covenants in their neighborhood, but those covenants are ignored, and people park bumper to bumper, corner to corner, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, resident Kim Pennington said.

The residential association hired Gonzalez Strength & Associates to come up with a solution, and the consultant recommended turning most streets in the community into one-way streets and allowing parking on one side of the street only, with 104 striped parking spaces.

But residents tonight told the planning commission that the residential association didn’t inform residents about the one-way street proposal, and numerous residents said they’re unhappy with the plan. The only way they found out about it was the notice they received from the city about tonight’s meeting, they said.

Pennington said painting arrows on the street and erecting signs isn’t going to keep people from parking on both sides of the streets. “The only plan that’s going to work is to get people to park in their driveways,” she said.

Some people will park in the street when their driveway is empty, and their garage is full of other belongings, she said.

Resident Bruce Bodner asked where all those other cars that currently park on the other side of the streets are going to go. There is not enough off-street parking to accommodate them all, he said.

Resident Pat Chumbley said turning the streets into one-way streets will destroy the suburban character of the neighborhood, giving it more of an inner-city feel. Another resident said it’s unsightly to have cars even on one side of the street, and he doesn’t think it’s right for people to park in front of his house.

Bodner noted that the residential association is set to have it annual meeting later this week and suggested the planning commission vote be continued to give residents more time to discuss the issue.

Planning Commission Chairman Mike Wood agreed and said it’s better if residents, rather than the planning commission, try to come up with a compromise solution. Wood said the commission would take up the issue again on May 13.

In other business tonight, the Planning and Zoning Commission:

Back to topbutton