Hunts Lane Parking Situation is a Mess

By on December 4, 2009 1:59 pm in Brooklyn Heights

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After posting earlier this week about Sunday parishioners blocking the bike lane on Henry Street, we received this parking related dispatch from an anonymous tipster on Hunts Lane:img00117

While parking, or lack thereof, is a problem in all of Brooklyn Heights, Hunts Lane is especially troublesome. You see, Hunts Lane is a posted No Parking Anytime street.

However, people (illegally) park here all the time.

There is, for example, constuction occuring on the block and workman park (illegally) their personal vehicles all day in front of the home they are working on. Before that, they parked their vans and trucks in the same location. Repeated calls to 311 and the 84th Precinct yielded nothing – perhaps a ticket now and then, but the vehicles returned each and every day. The uneven enforcement is not serving as a deterrent. This has been occuring since April, at least.

More upsetting – and its upsetting because repeated attempts at speaking to the 84th Precinct Commander have gone unanswered – is the Lebonese Church at Henry and Remsen. Parishoners park along the bike lane, on curbs, and even on my street – the Posted No Parking Anytime lane – each and every Sunday for hours at a time. The Police do not enforce the posted signage here. Unfortunately, I don’t have video like the other post, but will attempt to

Yassky’s office was unhelpful to say the least. The told a neighbor of mine the Mayor’s office is pro-business and has told NYPD not to ticket. My neighbor recently reached out to Councilman-Elect Levin seeking assistance and is awaiting reply.

Go down Hunts today. Take a look around. See for yourself.

Bottom line: we need relief from this situation. Cars and vehicles can not illegally park repeatedly and face zero consequences.
Allowing them to continue as is provides no disincentive for them to repeat the act. This should fall into the “Applications of Broken Windows Theory 101.”

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  • hicks street

    I love Brooklyn Heights, but we are so stuffy with stuff like this. Who gives a sh*t if they park in the bike lane during Church. Stop being such a worry wort. It’s one day. Who cares if a construction truck parks outside the house that it is working on in a street that nobody drives on. I hate these people in the Heights that are such pains in the *ss. Grow up and let people be.

  • x

    It is interesting because we get tickets if we are 1 minute too late in feeding the expired meters, because the meter maids are hovering over Montague

  • AEB

    Hicks, you miss the point entirely. There’s a regulation against parking in the street.

    If, by disregarding a law, people inconvenienced you or worse, would you accept the excuse that they were doing it “for one day only”–and that you should lighten up about it, stop being so “stuffy”?

    Without wishing to reopen the dialogue about bike-lane blockage that occurred on the blog recently, I still feel that laws can be changed, but shouldn’t be enforced selectively.

  • Eddy

    Here we go again…

  • http://www.cnn.com y

    I agree with x and AEB. I live on Remsen. Why can some people not follow the law/posted signs and get away with it while others can?

    If a car is double parked because they’re loading something, fine. But stand there all day with your flashers on, you should get ticketed and towed. In fact, in Manhattan, this happens regularly. Why isn’t it happening in Brooklyn? Why can’t workers wake up early to get where they need to be on time and be parked legally?

    If I’m late to feed the meter on a Saturday, wham, I get ticketed. But construction workers can just park anywhere where they seem fit and leave their vhicles there without penalty? Hicks Street…that’s just wrong and illegal and they should face the same consequences you or I do. I’d agree with this even if it was the Bay Ridge blog or the Long Island City blog. It’s common sense.

    The Church situation is, however, a whole nother can of worms. NYPD, DOT, our Community Board, residents, and elected officials need to work on this together. It’s the same situation – people are parking illegally. Like it or not, it’s a law they are breaking.

  • my2cents

    I’ll agree it can be a nuisance but let’s also recognize that in many cases tradesmen need their work vehicle in close proximity to the job site. if there is an electrician, he needs to get conduit, wiring etc. from his van without having to walk 5 blocks every time. I think that is part of the reason police are flexible with work vehicles parked by a job site. However, that said people still abuse this loophole without a doubt. But I got to give a shout out to Hicks Street’s comment…

  • coco

    I live facing Hunts Lane. The construction has been going on since this time last year with varying degrees of intensity. In April there was the added second team of city workers after a pipe issue (previously ignored) effected the carriage house being rebuildt. That’s when it went from one team to two construction teams. I work from home and it’s an endless symphony of workers spitting, coughing, whistling, etc. When the pipe issue came up they tore up the street & I wonder how any of the owners on the lane who have cars managed to get in or out since there are some homes with private garages.

    I agree workers should be able to park where they need to do work, but if you are a resident why shouldn’t you get the same priviledges? There were posts about this construction before but as many complaints as 311 got they did nothing, even when there were pumps running 24 hours a day.

    Does anyone know what happened with the idea of permit parking? I’ve seen cops ticket cars on alternate side of the street parking days, wait until a car owner left their car with less than 15 minutes left before the ‘legal time’ & ticket them. I was totally shocked. I asked what the rules were out of curiosity and the parking cops told me there are streets in the Heights they are not allowed to ticket but others that they have full reign over & so they ticket there all the time which includes Remsen Street.

  • Hunts Lane Resi

    The situation on Hunts Lane is unfortunately the result of one set of very selfish residents who refused to keep their contractors under control during construction on their carriage house at No. 8 despite repeated pleading from their neighbours. I take the point about tradesmen needing to be close to their trucks, but as you can see, often private cars of the construction workers who were just to lazy to find a legal spot were parked outside all day every day. At one point, I counted 14 vehicles parked on the no-parking street!

    BTW, the construction workers on the sewer and water mains did a very professional job. The pumps were running to stop folks at the top of the street having sewage back up into their houses. Although this was very disruptive, it was essential work that needed to be done. The workers made sure to secure the site every evening so that residents could get their vehicles in/out of their garages.

  • parking

    @ coco: what are the streets they are not allowed to ticket? Please share as I would like to park there myself and let my out of town friends know as well. It beats paying $25 a day for parking in one of the garages around.

  • nabeguy

    BH = affluent neighborhood. Distance from tow pound = 1/2 mile. Do the math. PO’d by repeat offenders? Crazy glue.