Board bars trucks over 12,000 pounds from parking overnight
STAMFORD — After years of complaints from residents, hearses, farm vehicles and an expanded list of commercial vehicles no longer will be able to park on Stamford's streets overnight.
The Board of Representatives this week adopted a set of changes to Stamford's ordinance that restricts parking in residential zones. The rules are expected take effect soon.
“It's really been a result of numerous complaints over a lot of years,” especially on the East Side, West Side and South End, said Frank Petise, the city's Transportation, Traffic and Parking Bureau chief, who worked with the board's Transportation Committee on the measure.
The new ordinance prohibits anyone from parking a vehicle on a street in a residential zone between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. or for more than two hours over a 24-hour period if the vehicle has the type of plate listed in the ordinance and any one of six different characteristics.
Violators of the overnight rule will be subject to a $120 fine; violators of the two-hour rule will face an $80 fine.
The types of plates include commercial, construction, farm, hearse, interstate bus and taxi, among others. If a vehicle has one of those plates and is taller than 8 feet, longer than 20 feet, wider than 7 feet, has more than four wheels touching the ground or weighs more than 12,000 pounds, the parking restrictions apply.
The old ordinance referred to vehicles weighing more than 18,000 pounds and didn't list certain plates or mention parameters such as height, length or width.
The new rules are aimed at vehicles like “larger box trucks,” which can create safety issues because they block lines of sight for other drivers and pedestrians, Petise said.
Officials used a Greenwich ordinance as a model — but made some tweaks for Stamford's version. Greenwich's ordinance refers to vehicles longer than 18 feet and more than 10,000 pounds. Stamford went with 20 feet and 12,000 pounds to try to avoid impacting common pickup trucks and SUVs, Petise said.
“I don't want to hurt the bluecollar (workers) who may have their own trucks — pickup trucks — they drive to work every day for their own business,” he said. “We don't want to … create a problem for those people. We want them to still be able to park at their houses, etc.”
Petise said his department plans to put out information about the new ordinance through the city's website and social media accounts.
Officials included some language from the old ordinance after James Lunney, the city's chief zoning enforcement officer, said it was needed to avoid creating a loophole.
Zoning regulations permit someone living in a residential zone to park one commercial vehicle with a capacity of three-quarters of a ton on their property.
“If someone has five of them, and then the ZEO goes there and says, ‘You can't park them here,' they're just gonna move them to the street,” Petise said.
Those vehicles may weigh under 12,000 pounds. But with the language from the old ordinance, they will face the parking restrictions.
The ordinance includes exceptions for vehicles “necessary for the performance of a service” at a building, vehicles responding to an emergency, vehicles making a delivery, municipal vehicles or vehicles parked as ordered by police.
Rep. David Watkins, R-1, who chairs the Transportation Committee, said the revised ordinance was the result of about a half-dozen meetings and “represents a certainly significant improvement over the existing ordinance” in terms of clarity.