City councilors will review several recommendations on Monday made by the Parking Committee to amend the Code of Ordinances in various areas throughout the city to allow for additional handicap parking and less restricted parking.

If approved by the City Council, a handicap space will be installed on Warren Street near the YMCA, school zone parking restrictions will be removed from South Street and time-restricted parking will be removed on Washington Street, according to city documents.

Warren Street

Susan Dow, a resident of Pembroke with a walking disability placard, visits the YMCA on Warren Street regularly to swim and exercise but often can’t find anywhere to park.

In December 2020, she requested the city install a handicap space on Warren Street. There are seven available handicap parking spaces within the State Street Parking Garage which abuts the YMCA facility.

The Parking Committee reviewed her request and recommended the City Council approve it with the condition that the parking space be limited to two hours.

South Street

Keith Burbank lives at 172 South Street, a portion of the roadway where school zone-related parking restrictions are located along the frontage of his property on the west side of the street.

Burbank wrote to the city’s Parking Division to request that they be removed. The parking restrictions were enacted in June 2013 following the construction of the Abbot-Downing Elementary School to manage loitering and parking activities during drop-off and pick-up times at the beginning and the end of the school day.

The Parking Committee recommended City Council eliminate the parking restrictions between Conant Drive and Coolidge Avenue, which would become an unregulated parking zone if approved.

Washington Street

On the street over from Washington Street sits a 9-unit rooming house that has existed for several decades but its residents don’t have access to parking because of the narrowness of Rollins Street.

In December 2021 on behalf of the residents of the home, attorney Ryan Layme contacted the Parking Committee and proposed to repeal the three-hour parking zones on Washington Street to create unrestricted parking to support the tenants.

The Parking Committee reviewed Layme’s request and recommended City Council repeal the three-hour limit but, coupled with the parking demand in the neighborhood and the pending redevelopment of First Church into units of multifamily housing, there is no guarantee that these parking spaces will be consistently available for the residents of 5 Rollins Street.

City Council will hold a public meeting and take a vote on the recommendations on Mon  day.

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