City seeks to tweak parking-placard policy

LOWELL -- The City Council has spent the past several months debating how to tweak Lowell's ordinance regulating the ubiquitous reserved-dwelling parking placards, if at all, but councilors still have not agreed on a clear path forward.

In the latest development, the council's transportation subcommittee voted last Tuesday to again direct the city's Department of Planning and Development to do more research about the reserved-dwelling signs and how to revise the ordinance regulating them.

The subcommittee's three members want city officials to make a recommendation about whether a system requiring an annual renewal of the parking placards, which dot many of the city's neighborhoods, would be useful.

Currently, residents of the city can pay $10 for a placard and never have to renew ownership of the sign.

As part of an annual renewal system, councilors also asked planning officials to come back with a potential fee for the renewal.

Councilor Joseph Mendonca said an annual renewal program could help the city figure out how many placards there are in the city and could lead to a reduction in the number of placards.

"I'm hoping by having an annual renewal with a fee, people in areas who don't need them won't spend money for something they don't need," Mendonca said.

Councilor Marty Lorrey, chairman of the subcommittee, expressed some reluctance about the proposal.

"I don't want to see another fee on people in the city," Lorrey

Lorrey has also expressed reluctance about doing too much tweaking of the parking-placard ordinance, saying, "if it isn't broke, don't fix it."

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City seeks to tweak parking-placard policy