Park at your own risk
Las Olas neighborhoods may get permit parking
FORT LAUDERDALE — On any given day in Fort Lauderdale, visitors and workers headed to popular Las Olas Boulevard spill out into the surrounding neighborhoods, parking anywhere they can.
But the parking free-for-all, long a comLas plaint of homeowners off Las Olas, will come to an end soon, under a proposal headed for a City Commission vote Tuesday.
The neighborhoods of Beverly Heights, north of Las Olas, and Colee Hammock, straddling it north and south, could become permit-parking-only districts.
Under the proposal, cars without a resident’s permit would receive parking tickets.
“There’s been so much effort by so many people in this community to get this done,” longtime Colee Hammock activist Jacquelyn Scott said. “I’m optimistic.”
Olas is the city’s premier destination boulevard, with boutiques, bars and restaurants. Visitors and locals alike are attracted to the boulevard, just one block from the New River, and a straight shot to the barrier island and beach.
But residents who live nearby say strangers block their driveways so they can’t get out, park in front of trash receptacles so trucks can’t service them, make noise and callously toss trash.
One photo in the city’s documents for
Under the proposal, cars without a resident’s permit would receive parking tickets.
Tuesday’s vote shows a McDonald’s french fry container on the ground, and fries strewn on the street.
A city study found that 74 percent of the vehicles parked in Colee Hammock during a 24-hour period, and 84 percent in Beverly Heights, were owned by non-residents.
The idea of requiring permits has been floated before, including 10 years ago. And this time, the vote has been postponed several times. It always draws controversy.
In an email Sept. 6 to the mayor and Commissioner Romney Rogers, residents David and Kathy Freeman asked that the idea be rejected, or at least minimized so that it ends at 5 or 6 p.m. They were worried about having to find remote parking for guests at their home.
Details about how residents’ guests would park are unclear, but the city permitparking law says guests would all need guest parking passes to avoid being ticketed.
“Colee Hammock is not a secluded suburb,” the Freemans’ email to City Hall said. “It is in the middle of a growing urban center. The people who want this permit love the fact that there are restaurants and shops within walking distance, but on the other hand act as if this was a secluded and exclusive suburb.”
Beverly Heights is north of Las Olas Boulevard, between U.S. 1 and Southeast 12th Avenue, from Broward Boulevard south.
A few roadways in that neighborhood would be exempt from the permit-only rule: Southeast Eighth Avenue and streets west of it; Southeast Second Street along the canal; and roadways south of Southeast Second Court.
Colee Hammock is on both sides of Las Olas Boulevard, from Broward Boulevard to Brickell Drive, and from Southeast 12th Avenue to South Victoria Park Road.
Streets surrounding the First Presbyterian Church in that neighborhood would be exempt from the restrictions. Because of that, “we are now in support,” the church’s vice president, lawyer-lobbyist Stephen Tilbrook, wrote in a recent letter to the city.
The permit-only parking restriction is proposed from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., but city commissioners Tuesday could extend the hours to midnight, a city memo indicated.