The McCordsville Town Council approved a new amendment to the town’s parking ordinance at its August meeting, clarifying language as it applied to unattended vehicles and allowing subdivisions to create their own parking ordinances.
The amendment inserted definitions for arterial and collector streets, with arterial streets being main thoroughfares that carry the majority of the traffic and connect different areas of town and collector streets being secondary streets which connect arterial streets to smaller local roads. More information on what McCordsville considers to be its arterial and collector streets can be found within the thoroughfare section of the town’s comprehensive plan. The town is currently in the process of creating a new comprehensive plan, signing a contract with Rundell Ernstberger Associates, Inc. to do so in June. The new plan will also include this information.
The amended ordinance states that it is unlawful vehicles to stop “upon or in the right-of-way of any Arterial Street or Collector Street” unless they are doing so to provide clearance for a safety vehicle such as a fire truck or ambulance or have become disabled and cannot clear the road. The previous version of the ordinance only included CR 700N and did not include the exceptions for safety vehicle clearance or disabled vehicles.
“We’ve been having issues with people parking on the county roads, so there’s not a lot of room [for drivers],” council president Greg Brewer said. The amendment also created a new section governing parking within subdivisions. It created the general standard that parking will be allowed on both sides of the street, but should either the HOA or residents feel that the streets are too narrow to accommodate that, they can file a petition to restrict parking within the subdivision to one side only. The petition would need to be signed by a majority of households (either the lot owner or a resident at least 18 years old) agreeing that they think parking should be limited to one side of the street.
“Some of our neighborhoods were built at the county’s development standards and annexed into the town, so their streets are not as wide as some of the other subdivisions in the community,” Brewer said. “It’s going to allow HOAs there, if they want, the ability to restrict parking if they feel that necessary.”
The ordinance took effect immediately upon its passing last Tuesday.
