Ed Rahme is very clear about what he does and does not want the streets in his neighborhood to look like.
"We don't want Signal Hill to be a parking lot," said Rahme, vice president of the Signal Hill Community Association. The community of nearly 500 homes is located between Burke Lake Road and Rolling Road just south of Braddock Road in Burke.
Rahme and his neighbors make up one of a growing number of communities that are seeking county help in regulating the size and shape of vehicles that are parked on the sides of roads within their neighborhoods. Under Fairfax County guidelines, communities can obtain "Community Parking District" (CPD) status, which prohibits the parking of "watercraft, motor homes, camper trailers, vehicles with three or more axles, vehicles weighing 12,000 or more pounds, or vehicles transporting 16 or more passengers" in these areas.
In Signal Hill, the problem is mild now, but as more communities seek the CPD designation, fewer places are available to park large vehicles, said those at Signal Hill.
"We don’t want to get to a point where people, if they can’t park in their own back yard, they’ll bring their boats and trailers into our community," said Miriam Longo, the president of the Signal Hill Community Association. "Right now, we don’t have a bad problem. We have a small problem, but we’re trying to not let it get to that point."
COMMUNITIES interested in pursuing CPD status must first gather the signatures from at least 60 percent of residents on a petition, before submitting it to their district supervisor. Then, the request goes before the Board of Supervisors for a public hearing, and then a vote. Signal Hill's public hearing is Monday, Feb. 28.
According to Bruce Taylor, who overseas the program for the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, 12 areas in the county currently have signs up designating them as CPD's, including the Kingstowne and Manchester Lakes communities in the Lee District. The program is over two years old, but a year ago, the county eased the guidelines for getting approval, from 75 percent of the total households to 60 percent of total houses, and 50 percent of each block. Many of the initial communities wanted to restrict parking because of narrow streets said Taylor, but now more communities just want their communities to look less cluttered.
"At first it was mainly a safety issue. Now, it's probably starting to move toward aesthetics, but there's still a lot of people coming in saying they want them for safety," Taylor said. In all, over 40 communities have sought petitions and are currently working on getting the number of signatures needed.
Rahme said his community obtained signatures from 68 percent of its residents and delivered the petition to Supervisor Sharon Bulova's (D-Braddock) office in December 2004. The main complaint of his residents, he said, was that those who owned campers or RVs wanted the chance to park those on the road temporarily if need be, for seasonal maintenance or packing. Under the CPD guidelines, owners are allowed a 48-hour window to park privately owned vehicles before they are ticketed.
"If they want to work on it Tuesday and Wednesday and leave Thursday, that's OK," said Rahme.
BURKE CENTRE, a community of nearly 5,000 homes, has been trying since 2002 to obtain CPD status, but having to collect so many names, from five large neighborhoods, the going has been slow, said Sandy Manoogian, head of the Conservancy's Architectural Review Board.
"We’ve been working on this for over two years, probably longer than any other community, but there’s a lot of people," she said.
Last November, volunteers took to the polls on Election Day to solicit signatures and inform the public about the project.
"It was a rejuvenation of the original process which had gotten stagnant," said Manoogian. "It brought new life to the program."
Now, said Linda Welch, who headed up the Election Day signature drive, Burke Centre is 300 signatures short of the 60-percent requirement.
"We hope to have that done and sent out by the end of March," said Welch.