TOP STORIES

Reversing course?

Proposal upsets residents of Fredonia street

Residents of Fredonia's Forest Place are furious that the village is considering a parking ban on the street, and making it a stretch of it one-way.

Complaining letters from the residents, along with other rhetoric about the proposal, took up a big chunk of Fredonia's last Board of Trustees meeting.

Forest Place is a rather narrow thoroughfare that runs from Main to Risley streets and borders Canadaway Creek. Fredonia officials are proposing that it be changed from a one-way street on the section from Main to Barker streets.

Additionally, Mayor Michael Ferguson said "There was a proposal put in place about not allowing any parking on either side of Forest Place," evidently on the stretch directly next to Canadaway Creek. "I spoke to a lot of residents this weekend -- (it's) not a good idea in certain areas."

Ferguson said trustees would consider the proposed changes at their next workshop today. He commented that "saying there's no parking is very difficult."

The mayor added, "That is a much tighter part of the community as far as the street... (A) problem is getting down the street with a truck. Last year we had to use a pickup truck with a plow on it, in order to plow that."

In response to a question from a resident, Ferguson declared that the street would keep parking on one side the whole way through, although that is ultimately trustees' decision.

"Part of it's plowing, part of it's the difficulty of getting through traffic," he said of the one-way proposal. "There's not an ideal solution. If you'd like to come up with some ideas and send things to the board, or call me...you got a week before the workshop and another week before they vote on the resolution."

Village Treasurer Erlyssa LeBeau then read a series of letters from Forest Place residents -- seemingly representing most of the street -- who expressed concerns about the proposals.

Rick Napoli wrote, "I am extremely concerned about this. ... What I can’t figure out is what will us homeowners do moving cars, sealing and repairing driveways, (using) lawn services, (allowing) guests. How will we entertain? This is a significant change in our lives."

Napoli added, "Since I find most streets crowded in Fredonia, should we just put into law no parking on any streets? Do we have actual data showing there are accidents on Forest due to massive parking issues? If there were accidents, I must have been out of town."

Another resident suggested that no-parking signs would cause "a real hit to property values. A home you can't park near is a home that's harder to sell." She also thought that making part of Forest one-way would simply congest neighboring streets.

A third letter was signed by more than 30 Forest Place residents.

"We ask that the board permanently table this proposal," the residents wrote. "First, we are deeply disappointed by the total lack of transparency surrounding this decision. We only learned of this proposal through the last line of a local news article... We were given no formal notice and no opportunity for input before being placed under this improper time crunch."

The residents added that a ban on parking would "severely erode our property values and degrade our quality of life. ... We also strongly dispute the claim that banning parking will make Forest Place safer. Parked cars act as a natural speed control during the day by narrowing the roadway. Stripping those cars turns our residential strip into an interrupted dragway."