Homeowners on Turlock’s Garden Lane have filed a petition with the City of Turlock to establish a residential parking permit zone, after steadily increasing problems with residents of a nearby apartment complex.
Carrie Dompe, a resident of Garden Lane and spokesperson for the neighborhood, addressed the City Council to discuss the issue at last Tuesday’s meeting. She said that overflow parking from the Parkside Apartments, located at 920 Pedras Rd. has created an unsafe situation in the neighborhood.
Dompe says residents now regularly report noise disturbances, lewd acts, littering, loitering and vandalism. In the past several months, the situation has become so dire that police are called on an almost daily basis.
“It is escalating to a form of harassment. With all this going on in our neighborhood, it is not safe anymore. It is the apartments’ parking that created this,” said Dompe. “People have blocked driveways, blocked cars in and sometimes just leave their cars there for three or four days at a time.”
The specific source of the problem appears to be an inadequate amount of parking at the Parkside Apartments. There are 17 three-bedroom apartments and 7 two-bedroom apartments at Parkside, with only 24 parking stalls.
Turlock city code mandates that complexes must have 1.5 parking spots per apartment, plus one for guests. However, since the Parkside Apartments were originally built in the late 1960’s, the complex is grandfathered into modern code.
Dompe says that the apartments were remodeled and purchased by another management company in August 2013, which has lead to an increase in younger college students living in the complex.
Turlock Mayor John Lazar acknowledged Dompe’s situation and noted he has spoken with her on the phone recently. “I’m sorry it’s gone this far,” he said.
The Garden Lane residents’ request for a residential parking permit program is likely to be granted in the next several council meetings.
“We believe one of the viable solutions is for a neighborhood parking permit, which will allow police to tow cars away that are in violation and control parking,” said Turlock City Manager Roy Wasden.
Dompe doesn’t believe the permit zone will completely solve the problem, but will help tremendously. She heralded the City of Turlock for their help.
“The City of Turlock (staff) have been wonderful and very helpful,” she said.
