OGDEN — This week has brought significant snowfall to the Ogden area and, almost fittingly, a change in how the city will deal with it.

On Tuesday, the Ogden City Council voted 5-1 to adopt a new ordinance “to prohibit on-street parking when it is snowing or when snow removal is apparent or imminent, or when there is an accumulation of snow or ice of one inch or more.”

Operations Manager Vince Ramos said that as recently as this week’s ongoing snowfall, the city has routinely received complaints about the job done plowing streets where vehicles have gotten in the way.

“We had an email come through (Monday) night in the 200 block of Franklin and they felt like we didn’t even plow,” he said. “We went out there. This is a troubled area. We did plow it but a lot of areas were left because of these cars and it got skipped. They had to go around it.”

He said the city receives several calls and emails after every storm regarding snow and ice that doesn’t get removed due to parked cars.

As originally discussed, the ordinance had tighter restrictions regarding on-street parking, but over several listening sessions on the matter, it was decided to make exemptions so as to avoid punishing those with no other choice.

“We listened to what your concerns were,” Ramos said. “We added some of these exemptions.”

Exemptions include:

• Roads that are controlled by the state of Utah.
• Those roads designated by the mayor as having inadequate off-street parking.
• Properties with no driveway approach.

A full list of exempted streets is available in the meeting packet at http://tinyurl.com/yc8j3ufj.

A blanket timeline of street parking prohibition from late fall to early spring also was considered, but this was ultimately dropped from consideration.

Council Chair Angela Choberka, the sole vote against adoption of the ordinance, expressed concerns about the appeals process, mainly the potential volume, using her neighborhood as an example.

“Within my block radius, I can tell you there’s at least three to five houses that are multifamily housing — many different families are living in the housing — and they might have driveways, but they have so many cars it’s not going to work for them,” she said. “In my block alone, if you have three to five people calling  you, you multiply that across even just District 1, people calling you to tell you they’re an exception and you have to go research all of those, I have concerns about the call rate for the police, for the extra work that you’re going to have to do.”

She said there’s also concern about the ordinance’s enforceability.

Mayor Ben Nadolski said the city needs a clear ordinance.

“We’re asking for an ordinance, not because we can or can’t enforce it,” he said. “We do need the ability to enforce it because there’s just going to be circumstances where we have people that have every ability not to park in the street and they choose not to (do that).”

Ramos said the ultimate goal of the new ordinance isn’t to aggravate people, but rather make the job of street crews easier.

“We’re not trying to make it difficult for our residents,” he said. “That’s the last thing we want to do. We want to just get these roads cleared.”

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