Front Yard Parking in Maplewood?

Just wool-gathering here for a possible future landscaping project. Anybody know if it is legal to create a small one-car parking area in front of your house? Have spent some time searching the township zoning code but am not finding the answer. (I do see that you can't pave more than a certain % of your lot.) Can call them tomorrow to ask obviously but thought I'd check the collective intelligence here in the meanwhile. Thanks.

Call Bob Mittermeyer in the building department. He will be able to tell you

Yes he has always been super-helpful, but I wanted to know NOW. (You know how it is when you get a bee in your bonnet!)

I thought you couldn't.

No you cannot park in front of your house .

There are houses with crescent driveways where people park out in front; grandfathered in? Also I've seen a few houses with sections of widened driveways to create parking for a couple of cars. (There's one on Plymouth near Summit -- sorry if I'm calling you out but it is so practical and looks totally fine.) Maybe it's possible to get a variance? I'll call town hall tomorrow and also speak to my landscape architect.

You cannot park between the front of the house and a public road, you could create a driveway if the side yard is large enough. I did see a house on Franklin ave expand their present drive to in front of the house to accommodate a second car , not sure how legal it is.

What about houses with built in garages that have driveways out to the street....they obviously park between the house and street.

That's the sort of thing I've seen too, MadHatterer. While I'd never want a giant country-club parking lot in front of my old frame house, our side yard is so narrow that the driveway is hazardous to rearview mirrors! -- so I was hoping there might be some other option to accomodate a second car without constant jockeying.

§ 271-50L(2)
Parking spaces for residential uses may be located in any yard, but parking shall be prohibited from being located in the yard space between a public street and any principal building. Single-family and two-family dwellings shall have no more than 30% of the front yard area in pavement for parking and shall provide a minimum of one parking space in a garage for each dwelling unit. Single-family dwellings shall have no more than one driveway access to a street.

Thank you, ctrzaska, I could not find that citation. Of course as terminator3 says, many of us do in fact park in our driveways between the street and the house! But I guess the driveway is not technically 'parking' even if we use it as such.

Driveways that extend from your garage to the street are part of the 30% of the front yard, and for the vast majority of homes, are not located directly to the part of the yard between the house and street, but adjacent to it. I doubt the driveway referred to by terminator3 extend from the front of the house itself (not counting an attached garage).

Well, I guess my house is grandfathered in because I have 2 driveways (single family house). Bought it that way over 20 yrs. ago. One is connected to an attached garage and can only accommodate 1 car since it's very close to the sidewalk.

For my street/local streets, many homes have driveway that extends to the edge of the lot, beyond the front of a single car garage - so essentially 2 cars are parked, but no parking at point house starts to left.

I think there's a certain understanding that these driveways were laid down a million years ago. Our smaller car (Nissan Versa) only fits past the house if you fold in the drivers side mirror.

I don't read that ordinance as prohibiting parking in your driveway near the street, since the driveway presumably goes along the side of the property rather than in front of the house.

I'm actually involved in a variance process over this exact issue. During a renovation, we inquired about this exact project with the town and Mr. Mittermaier. We were told that it was totally fine as long as we didn't change the cutout to the street. About a month after completing the project (many of our immediate neighbors love it, btw) we were cited and sent letters saying the opposite of what we were told at Town Hall. Hold off on any such project. Surprisingly, many folks have apparently very strong feelings on this issue, as we were absolutely being roasted on FB by some folks living outside of the immediate neighbors feeling we were attempting to ruin the charm and integrity of Maplewood. I was quite surprised...frankly the only reason we had this idea was that we saw the house you mentioned and several others in the area that had done the same work. I understand the precedent means absolutely nothing regarding this issue, but we felt if we saw many with the same thing, and the town said it was ok, it must be ok....could be a very unfortunate and expensive mistake.

Thanks, Marmaduke -- I'm sorry you are confronting this; it sounds infuriating. No of course we don't want to ruin the charm and integrity of these old neighborhoods, but if the driveway is inadequate and you propose a tasteful solution (not acres of blacktop or concrete), I don't understand the problem. (Especially if you were told at town hall it was fine!!!)

You should inquire about grass driveways. They may be the best of both worlds.

http://www.invisiblestructures.com/grasspave2_grass_driveways.html

That's an amazing system; wonder if that would mollify town hall. (Altho grass isn't necessarily the most environmentally friendly planting.) I also like those grass/paver grid systems, or just a grass strip down the middle of a driveway.

Think about a street with every house having a tasteful little car park on their front lawn. might as well have 24/7 on street parking.

Whatever you put down you still run afoul of the no parking in the front rule.

I am a bit puzzled by this "rule". We have an attached garage which has a driveway between the house and the street. We park on this driveway which is in front of the house. Many of the houses on our street have a similar configuration and those who do all park on the driveway. Are you saying that I am not allowed to park on my driveway?

You can park on your driveway so long as your car is behind the front corner of your house. For older houses it's ignored and/or grandfathered - I'm not sure which. But they're not going to issue a permit that creates a parking spot in the front yard.

pmartinezv said:

I am a bit puzzled by this "rule". We have an attached garage which has a driveway between the house and the street. We park on this driveway which is in front of the house. Many of the houses on our street have a similar configuration and those who do all park on the driveway. Are you saying that I am not allowed to park on my driveway?

I don't think that's what it means. The ordinance seems to be preventing parking areas in addition to the driveway in the front of a house. (Or the building of new driveways not on the side.)

pmartinezv said:

I am a bit puzzled by this "rule". We have an attached garage which has a driveway between the house and the street. We park on this driveway which is in front of the house. Many of the houses on our street have a similar configuration and those who do all park on the driveway. Are you saying that I am not allowed to park on my driveway?

Draw a line extending the sides of your house (NOT including any attached garage) to the street. Can't park in the box of front yard thus created between house and street. Your driveway likely does not fall within this box, so not an issue.

Anyone with an attached garage is probably grandfathered in as are those few houses with circular drives out front. The rules apply to those with an existing side driveway who seek to add a car park area in front of their house. Or anyone that seeks to change an existing grandfathered driveway.

And yet there are at least a few obviously altered driveways in Maplewood -- searching minutes of zoning board meetings, I've found when some of these came up for discussion, and were indeed approved. I will handle our situation differently, I've decided, yet obviously some households are successful at this!

You can always seek a variance and it is up to the board to approve or deny.

The house next to mine has an attached driveway that has been widened to accommodate one extra car - this is in the space closer to my house, which is not directly in front of any building. I don't think it looks bad and the extra parking is very useful since the driveway is only long enough for one car.