Mayor: We're Going To Extend Town Hall Parking

More than a dozen tenants of South Street Apartments came to Town Hall Tuesday night hoping their concerns—about whether they'd be able to park near their homes—would be heard en masse.

Within 10 minutes, most of them had left the building.

It was quickly announced that there wouldn't be any official action directly affecting those residents, or their specific parking situation. Nor would the council take action on most of the rest of a proposal to amend parking regulations throughout town.

Councilwoman Alison Deeb, who acted as council president because Anthony Cattano Jr. was not in attendance, announced a public meeting on the parking issue would be held 7 p.m., Monday, Sept. 20, in the Senior Center at Town Hall.

Mayor Timothy Dougherty said the issue needed to be re-examined because the council had been considering putting two-hour parking restrictions on certain roads—including those near Morristown High School—and might introduce new issues by doing so. He said students at the high school would be forced to park elsewhere in the area, which could cause more problems.

"This needs to be studied," he said.

The residents of South Street Apartments—the building formerly known as the Ambassador—had previously utilized parking across James Street in a lot now occupied by the Visiting Nurse Association of Northern New Jersey, which moved in last year. When the VNA took over, the organization no longer allowed South Street Apartments residents to park in that lot, even overnight. 

Dougherty said he has met with officials with the VNA regarding the issue.

"They were not receptive," he said. "We saw it as a win-win. They do not see it that way. These are neighbors and they have rights like everyone else. They need to have parking."

Since the ban on parking in the VNA lot, the town has allowed South Street Apartments residents to park in the lot behind Town Hall. A flyer distributed at the apartment building earlier this week indicated this privilege could be taken away if new parking enforcement laws were passed by the council.

For now, Dougherty said, South Street Apartments residents should not be concerned about that.

"We're going to extend town hall parking," he said.

He said it was not the final solution to the problem, however, noting any elderly and disabled tenants of the apartment building still have to deal with crossing busy South Street in order to get home.

Several calls for comment to the Visiting Nurse Association of Northern New Jersey were not immediately returned.

The council still voted to introduce an amended version of a parking ordinance—but anything detailing restrictions for specific streets was removed.

What remained would resolve a 22-year-old discrepancy. The law has until now indicated two-hour parking on some roads from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., while almost every sign in the town specifies the two-hour parking allowance from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The ordinance would update the law to match the existing signs.

Councilwoman Raline Smith-Reid still had concerns with voting on the issue without first surveying the roads.

"Maybe we need to look at this a little bit more before we even introduce this," she said. "I would like to go back and look."

Councilwoman Rebecca Feldman, who is the council liaison to the Morristown Parking Authority, said the estimated cost to replace the signs to comply with the current 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. law would be about $100,000.

"Do you want to go and change all the signs in town?" the mayor asked. "We're not creating an ordinance. The ordinance exists. It's our due diligence to match what the signs match to the ordinance … we're trying to make it as simple as possible."

The introduction of the ordinance was approved 3-1, with Smith-Reid casting the lone dissenting vote. In addition to Cattano Jr., councilmembers James E. Smith and Michelle Harris-King also were not in attendance.