By: Sharon Aron Baron
Tamarac residents are concerned by the number of people skirting around the no parking ordinance in their communities, whose cars create hazards restricting their line of sight and inhibiting fire rescue from having access. Signs that clearly state, “No parking between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.” are being ignored because residents say they aren’t being enforced.
A Mainlands 7 resident, who doesn’t want to be named, provided pictures of an ongoing problem in her neighborhood where cars and SUVs are parked overnight on NW 58th street and NW 48th Way. She said it creates a problem when someone turns out of NW 48th Way, creating a blind turn into the oncoming lane.
“As soon as you turn, you then encounter another car parked in the oncoming lane, and after that, a van, and a car in your lane. You have to zigzag all the way out,” she said.
Over a year and a half ago, residents contacted the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which issued tickets resulting in the offenders moving off the street for a week. However, soon they were back on the road again, she said when they figured out that they rarely come through to enforce the no-parking rule.
“It’s been a year and a half, and they have never come back. I guess they only enforce the no parking ordinance if you call – and that’s the problem. We have given up calling as the police don’t come back to reinforce it.”
She said the neighbors contacted City Commissioner Pam Bushnell for help, stressing the need for fire rescue to have access.
“She kind of side-stepped it saying, ‘this used to be a 55 and older community where people only had two cars. Now it’s more of a family neighborhood.’ We said yes, it was a retirement neighborhood which is why the streets are so narrow; however, the city has no parking ordinance on the street from 2-6 a.m. that isn’t being enforced.”
But the Mainlands 7 isn’t the only community that’s besieged by cars blocking the roadways overnight. The Woodlands Country Club residents said that new residents, including renters, violate the rules. Woodlands has stricter codes than the rest of the City of Tamarac through their overlays; however, sometimes things slip through the cracks. Residents posting on the private Facebook page have complained about two streets where homeowners are parking overnight: Breadfruit Circle and Royal Poinciana. One resident who lives on Breadfruit said people routinely park on the grass and the street.
“I moved into the Woodlands Tamarac because of the strict requirements, but what good does that do if people who live there don’t adhere to them or it’s not being enforced?” wrote one resident.
The Woodlands HOA hires an off-duty officer to patrol the streets at night, but offenders are not ticketed.
Because of the difficulty with garbage trucks getting through in the Mainlands 7, the homeowner’s association has asked BSO Captain Neal Glassman to attend their December 15 homeowner’s meeting to discuss the parking problem with them.
