Officials meet with dealerships over car delivery concerns
GREENWICH — The town is still talking with auto dealerships to find safe solutions for loading and unloading vehicles from car carriers without creating traffic problems.
The Board of Selectmen is considering a plan to create a loading zone on Edgewood Avenue but has show little support for it — nor has the town Planning and Zoning Department.
Town Director of Planning and Zoning Katie DeLuca asked the selectmen to table the discussion as she continues the talks with the dealerships. At Thursday’s meeting, the board agreed.
“There’s some more questions that need to be answered before we can give (the selectmen) the full story on the situation,” DeLuca said, reporting that positive discussions have taken place with the dealerships.
Greenwich Police Department traffic technician Roger Drenth also offered optimism about the situation.
“I would say that for now we are on the right track,” Drenth said.
Edgewood Avenue is off West Putnam Avenue, near several auto dealerships. Loading and unloading vehicles has caused traffic issues and drawn complaints from neighbors as the car-carrying trailers park illegally while making deliveries on nearby Edgewood Drive, where there’s an existing loading zone.
DeLuca said she recommended not creating a new loading zone because the dealerships are supposed to have space on their properties for loading and unloading, which means they do not need town streets to do it.
However, the dealerships hire independent drives who often do not know the rules of loading and unloading, and do wherever they want, she said.
“We have asked the dealerships not to use the loading zone (on Edgewood Drive) and to try and use their loading space (on their property),” DeLuca said. “The response was very positive, and they said everybody understood the problems and they’d absolutely try and do that. But then we did start getting photos from the neighborhood, saying it’s not going well and there were trailers in the street.”
That led to further outreach from the town, and, DeLuca said, Mercedes hired a security guard who is stationed at Edgewood
Drive and “chases away” trucks coming to the dealerships. That arrangement is slated to go into November, and DeLuca said she wanted to monitor it.
DeLuca said her department needs more time to work with the dealers and get the word out on
proper loading and unloading.
Selectwoman Jill Oberlander said she hoped the discussions would also address the aesthetics of West Putnam Avenue and how it has changed over the last decade. Oberlander asked if the dealerships could “all work together with the town” about the aesthetics there.
“I’d like to see some kind of plan or proposal there that would make a real difference,” she said. “Right now it’s very dispirit and maybe we can work together and the whole area would look better. I think it would advance their missions as well and make it more amenable for their clients to come to that area.”
A“car dealership summit” is part of the recently approved 2019 Plan of Conservation and Development for the town, DeLuca said, and it makes sense to do it.
“It would be a good time to let them all know that there other things we want to chat with them about while we’re at it,” she said.
Margarita Alban, chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission, added that the commission would soon be looking at the “Edgewood triangle” in the area as the next part of the town’s greenscape plan.
“We want to make the point that we value this section of town and we want to begin to show we’re taking care of it,” Alban said.
No representatives for the dealers or area neighbors spoke at Thursday’s meeting.