Residents Ask Greenwich Selectmen For Help With Parking Shortage On Their Street

GREENWICH, CT — Residents on Davenport Avenue are asking the town to reconsider the Parking Services Department's decision to not include their street in Greenwich's residential parking permit program.

The town designated specific residential streets for residential restricted parking as part of the permit program. The designated streets prohibit on-street parking without a residential decal/permit.

Davenport Avenue is a small, narrow dead-end street in downtown Greenwich close to the Metro-North train station, Greenwich Avenue, Bruce Museum, Delamar Hotel and Roger Sherman Baldwin Park.

Lissa Pasternak, a Davenport Avenue resident of 10 years, went before the Board of Selectmen on Thursday and said fellow residents have had trouble finding parking.

"We don't want to turn Davenport into a private road," Pasternak said, noting that there are six, maybe seven, "legitimate" parking spaces on the street. "We're not even talking about an issue where people are trying to park in front of our homes. This is a matter of not even being able to park on the street at all."

Pasternak said she believes the residential parking permit program was established for exactly this kind of situation.

"The reason why we did apply for the permit parking program [last November] is because commuters have now discovered our street, and other vehicles park there with no turnover; they're staying long hours," Pasternak said. "This has been since people have gone back to work since the pandemic, so we've definitely seen a change in our street."

If a resident can't find parking on Davenport, options are limited elsewhere because of metered parking, commuter parking and parking restrictions on nearby streets, Pasternak added. She said not all who live on Davenport have off-street parking available to them.

"I operate off the idea that if we're going to close a road to make it exclusive use, there's a pretty high bar before we do that. Everyone is a taxpayer. It's the taxpayer's road," said Greenwich Deputy Police Chief Kraig Gray, who also heads the town's parking services department.

Davenport Avenue was "grandfathered in" to the town's parking ordinance, Gray said, adding that the "legitimate" parking spaces Pasternak mentioned are "probably not legitimate at all" based on curb cutouts and distances across the road that have to be met.

Gray even had concerns about where "no parking" signs would go because of how the roadway is constructed.

"My understanding is, if we're going to open up the ordinance to create no parking there, I'm going to have to do a full traffic review. The 'desktop review' we did shows that this road is not conforming. It was there before there was probably pavement. To do it now, there'd for sure be no parking on the road," Gray added. "There are 265 miles of road in Greenwich, and so many of them are nonconforming to the current practice books for the engineers."

Gray suggested an engineering review be completed to determine what the parking looks like on Davenport Avenue.

"They can answer the question from an engineering standard based upon the Greenwich roadway design manual," Gray said.

First Selectman Fred Camillo said he was familiar with the street, but he understood where Parking Services was coming from in their decision.

A longtime property owner on Davenport Avenue, Michael Creamer, said there are plenty of nonconforming roads in Greenwich that are part of the residential parking permit program.

"If you're going to do for one, do for all," he said.

Pasternak implored the board to find a solution.

"We've been going through this process since November and we're now in July, and every day, these people are suffering," she said, noting that the lack of parking is especially difficult for two residents who have babies.

Camillo said more discussions will take place and the town will examine the streets included in the permit program.