Members of the Township Committee grappled to define their intent in creating an ordinance to prohibit home business commercial vehicles on residential roads before agreeing to have the measure carefully drafted.
During the October 28 meeting, the committee continued a discussion initiated in July about complaints the township has received over the past few years from homeowners regarding construction, storage, and commercial vehicles being parked on their streets.
Essentially, committee members do not want to see commercial vehicles stored on residential streets on an ongoing basis if they are associated with a business. “The question is the intent,” said Mayor Peter Cantu. “It’s to try to prohibit parking of commercial vehicles not associated with a home construction project on the street.”
“The objective is to protect the integrity of the residential zone,” he added. “With no control, you can envision this being a serious problem.
The new ordinance would create additional restrictions for street parking and driveway use for commercial vehicles. Officials are looking to prohibit commercial vehicles from being “kept” on the street. The prohibition would not only be for commercial trucks associated with home businesses, but also storage units on streets.
“This really is for the storage of vehicles on the street of a commercial nature,” said Les Varga, township director of planning and zoning. “The problem exists with the storage of vehicles and equipment, like pod storage units and trailers that are used for business.”
For example, store lumber associated with home projects in units would be prohibited from being stored on the streets. The prohibitions would encompass the whole right-of-way, although driveways would be excluded from this section of the ordinance, the point being to encourage use of the driveways for home construction.
Driveways, however, would not be a place to park a commercial truck or other large vehicle associated with a home office occupation, under the changes being proposed. The regulations would not prohibit homeowners from parking commercial vehicles in the street or driveway for a short period of time like, for example, a lunch break, but those vehicles must be stored in a garage.
Committeeman Neil Lewis said he felt the intent was correct with regard to prohibiting 18-wheelers, but feared it might be too restrictive. Committeeman Ed Yates echoed the sentiment, questioning whether a person’s ability to park a company car, used for commuting to work, would be prohibited overnight. The committee agreed that this would not be the intent.
“We don’t want to be punitive; we want to be defined,” Cantu said. “You’ve got to be careful with the language here. If we agree on the intent, maybe we should take a shot at redrafting the ordinance.”
Township Administrator Robert Sheehan suggested that in order to draft the ordinance, the township’s professionals should look at factors like the size and type of vehicles to prohibit, in terms of creating language that would be most suitable for the intent without being too restrictive.
The ordinance is being drafted and will be brought to the committee for review soon. In order to proceed, the measure would have to come in the form of an ordinance introduction and public hearing before it is adopted.
