As you may have noticed the yellow placards all around the Mount Vernon (MV) District, there is an upcoming public hearing (March 10th, 2008) regarding Community Parking Districts (CPD). CPDs are specific residential areas where certain large vehicles - boats, large trailers, etc. - are prohibited from parking on public streets. At this time, establishing a CPD is costly and the process is rather onerous. As such, only the well-heeled residential areas have been able to meet the criteria. Numerous complaints around Mount Vernon, however, have prompted this action. The complaints range from boats owned by Maryland residents being parked in the New Alexandria area as well as lawn companies and asphalt companies leaving their trailers in various areas when they are between jobs. The intent is to restrict large vehicles and watercraft, NOT ordinary business vehicles like company vans or small trucks.

The overall proposal is to establish the entire Mount Vernon District as a Community Parking District. This must be accomplished in two parts: first, the CPD ordinance must be changed to allow such a large area to be established as a CPD. Then, second, approval must be granted to the Mount Vernon District to establish a CPD in our area. Communities not wishing to participate in the overall CPD may opt-out.

The MVCCA weighed in on this issue about two years ago, requesting the establishment of a CPD for the entire MV District. We (Woodley Hills) have discussed but not voted on this issue, and I am unaware of whether the previous Association (Mount Vernon Farms) had an official position. Our recent discussions were generally neutral, with a majority believing the we the WHCA community did not necessarily need such a designation. 

While our immediate area has not experienced such parking problems, WHCA believes we should support our neighbors who ARE experiencing problems, and also NOT opt-out of the new CPD, should it be established. The risk of opting-out, of course, is that those communities would then be targets for parking problems where none existed before. We can further discuss this issue at any general membership meeting.

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