Photo by PoPville flickr user DCbmyers
“Dear PoPville,
We have a neighbor (flipper?) who is renovating a house a few doors down from us. In April, they put up emergency no parking signs for a rollaway debris container, reserving three out of four parking spots in front of our house. They ended up only having the dumpster there for a week or so, but they kept the signs up for the full month to use it as parking for their contractor (MD plates). In May they put up new signs for another month, and this time-with just four days left on the permit- no dumpster has showed up, at all. They’ve just been using it as reserved parking this whole time, and the spaces sit empty on nights and weekends.
I called DDOT to ask about this and was told this is misuse of these permits and is not allowed, and that I should document and report it when it happens. I also learned that you’re no longer allowed to reserve more than 2 spaces for rollaway debris containers so the inspector came out and made them remove one sign so that they only had two spaces reserved. However, despite me sending photos of them continuing to use the spaces for parking and not for a dumpster, the signs are still up and I’ve been told that there is no penalty for abusing this system – they can continue to apply for permits as many times as they want. The only thing we can do is call parking enforcement during the day when they are parked there and get them ticketed.
This seems insane – all these contractors have to do is pay $165 a month and they get reserved parking wherever they want it, and those of us in the neighborhood just have to deal with it? I know this is sometimes the reality of living in a city with limited parking and lots of construction, but these people are clearly abusing the system and getting away with it. (To add insult to injury, they have never posted the signs with the required 72 hour notice, they just go up on the date listed as the effective date on the sign). Has anyone dealt with this (successfully) before?”