Inoperable cars at BOMA: freedom vs order in your driveway

Dalton McCarty of Community Development went before the Board of Mayor and Alderman this Wednesday to discuss ordinances pertaining to inoperable vehicles visible from the road.

McCarty first brought up commercial clutter falling under Chapter 11-67, advising some wording that would allow for businesses to utilize certain materials to hide clutter. McCarty spoke to the importance of the change for his inspections.

“This is for use with automobiles, repair shops, tire shops, salvage yards, areas that need special screening for whatever vehicles that are not running or maybe a storage area for the used tires,” McCarty elaborated, “We don’t want to see all that from the street.”

Mccarty allowed that chain link fences around such materials with vinyl, metal panels etc. to cover them visually would be okay.

Beyond commercial spaces, McCarty addressed ordinance 16-298 from 2017 which restricts inoperable vehicle storage on private property. McCarty sought to add a specific definition for inoperable vehicles.

“If an individual has a vehicle that they want to keep or restore, that vehicle must be kept in an enclosed garage and not be seen… to help our community look good and also to help the property values stay up,” said McCarty stating that an updated definition to “inoperable vehicle” would help Community Development Department do a better job in code enforcement.

The proposed definition for an inoperable vehicle according to McCarty would be, “any vehicle that is wrecked, dismantled, partially dismantled, inoperative, abandoned, or discarded, not capable of being legally driven upon the road, street, or highway.”

In response, Mayor Flaggs suggested that the ordinance as it stands is already unfair to those without garages or other areas to conceal vehicles they may be working on. “I think that’s totally unfair… how’re you going to expect someone to take a vehicle off the street and put it in a garage that they don’t have”

Flaggs also questioned whether the ordinance was fair to all residents, “I hate to say it but that ain’t fair to the hood.”

Thus all matters brought by McCarty were shelved for further discussion before a later meeting. “We’ll take the whole thing under advisement” said Flaggs.