Editor, The Beacon:
I notice that on-street parking is proposed for the Beresford Reserve development. On the surface, this is a developer’s way to avoid having vehicle storage on a residential site. You see it all the time in densely built cities. People cruise until they find an overnight place to park their car. Translation: Permanent parking is put off onto the public.
What seems obvious is that on-street parking is a way to reduce the footprint costs of lots within the development. If you cut down on car storage, you can cut down on requirements for house square footage and setbacks, not to mention construction materials.
Cheap housing often results in “snout houses,” where garages stick out close to the street. Ugly and unacceptable.
Developers avoid snout-house development by putting excess automobiles on the street by agreement with the permitting agency. They use public facilities to solve something they could solve on their own.
Why should public agencies offer space so someone can plan to provide for the cars that a developer knows will be parked in a development? Will DeLand be sending parking enforcement to these streets? Who pays for that?
What else? Street parking leads to permanent on-street, third- and fourth-car (i.e., rental) parking: disabled cars, cars under repair, parking reserved by garbage tote placement, lane-hogging by parked cars, and access problems for ambulances, firetrucks and law enforcement.
Joan Carter
DeLand
