Prompted by resident input, La Grange Park is taking a second look at some recently added parking restrictions.
At issue are the permit parking requirements approved in April of 2023 for the hours 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. for streets West of La Grange Road to Edgewood Avenue and from the southern boundary of the Village to Harding Avenue.
“I am the guy who walked around with the petitions and distributed some flyers over the weekend with the help of some good friends who are interested in a repeal of this ordinance,” former village trustee Marshall Seeder told Village Board members during public comment on Feb. 13.
The petition Seeder referred to was recently submitted to staff by residents of the area commonly known as Harding Woods and contained approximately 220 signatures listing objections to the parking restrictions and urging their removal.
The petition argued that the main goal of the restrictions, to prevent cluster parking from students at nearby Nazareth Academy was “completely unnecessary as Nazareth students never park in the vast majority of the Harding Woods area.”
Other resident objections included the enforcing signs being unsightly and harmful to property values, the unnecessary burden to resident’s ability to have workers, friends, or other visitors park there, and the $24,000 costs of the signs and the extra costs associated with police enforcement.
Seeder acknowledged a more limited parking problem, saying “The problems over near Naz (Nazareth) are real, and back when I was a trustee, Mr. President, those folks had a legitimate concern about the parking by their homes, blocking their driveways, and causing risk to emergency vehicles,” he said, but pointed out that the current restrictions are “unpopular, it’s too much, and it’s unnecessary.”
Other residents echoed Seeder’s comments.
“I’ve lived a half-block from here, and I’ve lived there 40 years, never had an issue with parking, except recently with the construction people next to my house,” Sharon Flaim said while saying she was fine with it because they were doing work. “I object to you telling me I can’t have people park in front of my house without asking me if anything bothered me.”
Flaim noted that she lived a mile from Nazareth and none of their students would park there.
Several other residents spoke in favor of ending the restrictions and trustees took up the issue of what course to take.
The staff memo submitted possible recommendations for trustees to consider; remand the matter back to the Traffic Safety and Engineering Committee (TSE) for review and possible changes, leave the restrictions in place for another year before any changes, or do nothing.
Doing nothing had little support.
“Certainly to do nothing is not the right thing to do,” Trustee Bob Lautner said during board discussion, pointing out that the right thing to do would be sending the matter back to TSE.
Other board members agreed.
Since the issue was on the agenda as a discussion-only item, with no vote allowed, the board agreed to put on the next meeting’s consent agenda to send it back to TSE for further consideration.
The next La Grange Park Village Board meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27, in the Village Board Room, 447 N. Catherine Avenue.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
