Bullied over Parking Spots—

By: Crystal Simbudyal

 

Parking cone sits outside of Queens resident’s home.

As the days darken faster and the weather brings more chills, Shanel Mendonca arrives home from work in the afternoon carrying her daughter snugged asleep in her arms. A mother, who works full time and arrives home late some evenings, meets a neon orange cone along the road in front of her neighbor’s home. Sometimes it is a garbage can, holding the place for a resident to return and retrieve their parking space. Their driveway remains empty most of the time.

“It is ridiculous that people hold parking spaces. To avoid conflicts with my neighbors, I just park a few blocks up and take a walk several minutes to and from my car,” said Mendonca.

It used to be first-come, first-served, but not in this Queens Village neighborhood. It has become a trend, block after block, orange cones and garbage cans standing in the street have contributed to disturbance of relationships between neighbors because of the lack of parking available.

Shanel Mendonca, a Queens Village resident for 17 years, faces this matter on an everyday basis, as her next door neighbors hold a parking space anytime they leave their home. She is a driver in a home of several other drivers and this issue, she claims, “has become frustrating.” The family owns more than one car and if the driveway is filled up, they have to park on the street.

According to the 2013, Queens Village, New York Census Data & Community Profile, within the 7,588 households in Queens Village, “vehicle ownership trends with 16 [%] of household without vehicles, 38 [%] with one and 46 [%] with two or more vehicles.” If this trend continues, there will be less space available for people to park on the street and a rising number of frustrated neighbors if nothing is done about those marking what they think “is” their private entitled parking space.

Street parking is public. Churches can have no parking anytime.  People can make parking private in front of their home if someone is disabled;  then it will be designated as handicapped parking.

“Cops do not do anything about this. They hardly ever pass through this block anyway, and a few blocks over orange cones take over the road.” said Mendonca.

Objects are filling up the streets, not cars, some driveways even remain empty. “I think people avoid parking in their driveway because it is harder to get out in some instances. So they reserve their spot and claim it when they return home. I’m sure they know they don’t own the street,” said Mendonca.

Neighbors have noticed the inconvenience, but not much has been done to stop this trend. “This has been going on for six years, as long as I have been driving. My sister once moved a garbage can out of the street and parked. The owner of the home waited patiently for her to get out of her car. He then, told her, that’s his parking spot,” she said.

“Parking tickets are issued by street cops. Anyone who breaks the law for street parking, [such as] parking in handicapped spots, double parking, parking during no parking or standing hours, will have to pay a fee of $45 to $165– almost double in Manhattan,” said Ally, a NYPD Officer.

Kamey Tywarie, a mother, wife and resident of 13 years at a Queens Village home, noticed the trend of garbage cans being placed to hold parking spots about four years ago when businesses became more present in the neighborhood. “People just do not want to navigate in and out of their driveway,” she said.

“My husband had pulled up to park at what we thought was a parking spot but noticed someone had their parking cone in place so we couldn’t park. The owner of the home peered out their window. We had a staring contest. I was so upset,” she said.

Another time, Tywarie’s car was scratched with a nail along the sides, after she parked in front of someone’s house. It wasn’t until a year later, that one of her neighbors warned her not to park in this area anymore because her car would be keyed. “I never reported it because I didn’t have enough proof,” Tywarie said.

With the growing populations, families have more than one car; it becomes harder to park these cars in front of each other in a driveway, so people prefer to park in front of their house.

Tywarie has been tempted to the call cops but didn’t feel that it would interest them. “Unless it is a murder, a shoot-out or robbery, the officials don’t care,” she said. However, Shanel Mendonca has called 311, to report her concern about parking spots being held and very little was done in her defense.

“I live in the city, houses are practically on top of each other, and families have more than one car, some house owners, renters, even adults once kids have their own car,” Tywarie said.

It is not only residents who deal with the issue of parking wars. People who take mass transit, or who live by a major subway station like Tywarie has seen an increase in the number of people parking their vehicles and taking the subway to work and school.

“Although it may be a convenience to park in front of someone else’s home and only return to pick up their vehicle , it makes a huge inconvenience for the residents of the community. There is a home health agency building up the road from me and employees and visitors come in the morning and take up parking,” said Tywarie.

If someone takes two hours to shovel the snow in front of their home and wants to park there, they should be able to. “Part of it is being a good neighbor. Move the cone if it’s in your way. If a fight occurs after then we get involved. We can’t summons a ticket because we don’t know what the cone is for. It can range from temporary construction or a dumpster drop across the street from a house that going under construction. Besides without the cones, it wouldn’t be a safe environment if waste materials are just lying around., said Officer Ally.

Although the police will not do much about holding parking spots, residents look for a solution. “I think a solution to all this would be, if people just used their driveway we would have more parking available and if parking spots were available for businesses or apartment building residents then maybe people could just park in places provided when going to that specific home care, or pharmacy or school,” said Tywarie.