The Kedzie Elston Business Industrial Council

On April 4^th, KEBIC hosted twin Belmont/ Elston/ California-East Avondale quarterly community meetings at the Brands Park Field House. Results of the parking survey performed at the request of Alderman Richard F. Mell, 33^rd Ward, were presented to local residents, business owners and institutional representatives.

KEBIC had emailed and faxed a brief survey which hoped to gather local business perspectives on parking issues along the Belmont/Elston/California commercial streets. With the help of staff at Brands Park, over 60 of the 100 local businesses in the BEC area were contacted, resulting in 18 responses. Respondents seemed equally divided on whether there was a parking problem in the district. Fewer than half of the respondents claimed a parking problem for customers; more than half said no customer parking problem existed. One third said they had employee parking problems.

However, the largest five respondents stated their employees parked a total of some 90 autos on the streets and 21 autos in private lots during daytime hours. The next eight respondents had a cumulative employee parking of 15 autos on the streets and 7 autos of employees parking on private property during the day. The last five respondents had zero cars brought to work.

In comments on the surveys and in conversations during interviews and during the two meetings, a sense appeared that the parking congestion seems to be congregated on Belmont from Sacramento to Elston. One issue mentioned was abandoned and “for sale” autos that took up street spaces for weeks at a time, especially in the Sacramento/Belmont vicinity. Questions about abolishing or extending permit parking were answered by 33^rd Ward Chief of Staff Chuck Lomanto. According to Mr. Lomanto, existing permit parking is grandfathered and will not be removed, but no further permit parking will be allowed by Alderman Mell, as permit parking simply moves the parking problem to the next street (except in the valid case of streets adjoining CTA and Metra stops).

KEBIC staff agreed to monitor the “autos for sale” problem; Mr. Lomanto described a need for rewriting city ordinance to facilitate removal of autos with “for sale” signs parked on city streets, as the current ordinance is a bit too cumbersome. Attendees also enquired as to recent gang activity on Belmont, and asked if the next BEC quarterly meeting on June 20 might have representatives from the 17^th and 14^th Police Districts invited to discuss better coordination in dealing with problems on their respective district boundaries.