RESIDENTIAL PARKING PERMITS

The Old Astoria Neighborhood Assn. has been a strong advocate for the establishment for Residential Parking Permits. Our local parking issues have a strong effect on our quality of life, from the extra pollution, waste of time, and the psychological frustrations we all face from cruising the neighborhood looking for parking. While we agree that it will be a long journey to accomplish this, we view with interest a bill establishing a pilot program to test the feasibility of residential Parking permits in the LaGuardia Airport area. Indeed, if possible we would like this extended to the Old Astoria neighborhood.

Residential parking permits would allow only residents to park on their blocks overnight. This system would ensure residents a parking space near their homes and save them from having to drive around searching for one. In an April 2016 Astoria Post article by Joe Florio OANA President Richard Khuzami said, “It is a way for residents to make sure they have a place to park every night. He also floated the idea of varying the time that each permit goes into effect block by block. “If a block has a lot of commercial shops it could start at, say, 9 p.m.,” he suggested. Also, non residents will often park on blocks that do not have alternate side parking and leave their cars for days or weeks, even months in some cases.

“People dump their cars and go on vacation for a month at a time,” one Old Astoria resident said. “When you call the cops they come and say they aren’t going to give them a ticket.” Residential parking permit systems have been set up in other cities, where residents pay an annual fee. San Francisco charges $111 annually (Most expensive according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority); others pay no fee at all. OANA believes that residents would agree to pay a fee in order to obtain a permit. “Time is money, and plenty is wasted looking to find parking,” It has been said that 1 of every 2 miles automobiles are driven in NYC is spent finding parking.

Most major cities in the United States run residential parking permit programs successfully. Parking is at such a premium in NYC that creative thinking is a must. Since this is a “Pilot” test program, not permanent, a lot of questions can be resolved. But to do nothing should not be an option. We do not have to accept the status quo. We hope that this can be the first step in solving what today is one of the major quality of life issues all New Yorkers face.

Richard Khuzami

Mr. Khuzami has been a member of Community Board 1 in Astoria, NY for the last 20 years. He sits on the Zoning and parks Committees and is on the Executive Board. Previously, he served as Parks and Culture chair of Community Board 1 for eleven years and also chaired Capital and Expense priority Committee. He is a member of the Queens General Assembly and had been a panelist for grant submissions for the Queens Council on the Arts (QCA). Richard also is an officer of The Eastern Mediterranean Business Culture Alliance (EMBCA) and President of OANA.