Wednesday, March 4, 2009

curb cuts in other neighborhoods

anc5c will be considering a final vote on a curb cut on the unit block of seaton place nw here in bloomingdale at their next meeting, scheduled for march 17th.

anc2e just got turning down a curb cut request for a home in georgetown. while the situation is not the same as here in bloomingdale, i thought it was worth noting that the same subject is being debated around the city. there are some salient points made by the blogger at georgetown metropolitan.

9 comments:

DCBuppie said...

Sorry I missed this. What exactly is a curb cut? Making it shorter? Move up the no parking sign? what are the benefits? cons?

Anonymous said...

I say let them man/woman have her curb cut. It's their property and they have a right to park on it. There's plenty of parking in the neighborhood as it is. This is why some people don't want to live in the District. They have to deal with their neighbors and big government intruding in their lives.

IMGoph said...

buppie: a curb cut is when they add a gap to the curb for a driveway or alley—in other words, somewhere for cars to enter or exit from the street.

anon: sure, people have the right to use their private property. but do they have the right to have exclusive use of public property (which the street and its right-of-way is)? i would say they do not.

Anonymous said...

I oppose curb cuts. They result in a loss of street parking in addition to making it more difficult for pedestrians.

Anonymous said...

What do you mean "exclusive use" for the property owner? It's still a sidewalk, even after the person is done parking. And it isn't like there's anyone coming into our neighborhood looking for parking. There isn't any draws/restaurants for anyone to really worry about parking.

IMGoph said...

please, anon:, use a screenname at least so you can be referred to. i don't know if you're the same person who commented this morning or not.

there isn't much in the way of restaurant draws yet, but if/when baraki opens, we'll have one, and there will be something on the northern corners of 1st and seaton some day as well...

Anonymous said...

Still, I think all this micro managing of peoples property is just wrong. There would be less abandoned homes if people would stop regulating property owners to death.

IMGoph said...

formica: maybe a house or two might be occupied if there was less regulation in the city, but really, i'd rather stick with the way we handle things now that pseudo-anarchy.

the house on the northeast corner of 1st and randolph is not vacant because of too much regulation, it's vacant because a greedy owner in bethesda, who doesn't care about the neighborhood at all, has been holding on to it in hopes that he'd make huge amounts of money. the bottom line is that he's looking out for the bottom line, not the community. that's why we have vacant houses.

Richard Layman said...

You should have cited my piece on this broad issue of accommodating parking in places designed between 1800-1920.

urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2009/02/parking-in-historic-districts.html