Residents Against No Parking Proposal

By Joshua Walther

COBLESKILL - Last week, several residents showed up to the Cobleskill Village Board meeting to speak against a proposed local law that would restrict parking within the Village.

The proposal’s public hearing has been open since last month, and it states that it seeks to add more residential streets to the Village’s list of no parking at any time because of safety concerns.

One issue that Mayor Rebecca Stanton-Terk cited during the meeting was the width of the roads, as streets like Brookside have become as narrow “as a driveway,” leading to questions about emergency vehicle access

However, the Board also noted that the topic was a work in progress, with the mayor saying “We are in no way ready to do anything with this, but we are listening. We, as a Board, have asked for community input.”

The Board’s request for input was answered by the amount of people that showed up in opposition to the proposal. The first to take to the podium was resident Nancy Van Deusen, who brought up that parking is already restricted.

“I’m very concerned about this because I believe that parking is already difficult in many places in the community,” she said. “I think restricting it further on many of those streets is not only not necessary but it’s also detrimental.”

“I also think enforcement is going to be a difficult issue,” she concluded.

Resident John Jarvis was also opposed, saying “I believe that this proposal is very anti-family,” and spoke about how the driveways for some homes are not big enough to accommodate family and guests for holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Resident John O’Donnell referred to the community’s comprehensive plan, which he stated was supposed to guide the Board on how to make new policies.

“We have a master plan, and we should be taking recommendations from the master plan,” he said. “I have a copy of it with me here, and it says on page 11, ‘On-street parking should be maintained and reinstated where possible as a traffic calming technique.’”

Other residents, like Steve Philbrick, saw no need for a revision to the law, saying “I’m just confused. The beauty of this area is the sense of community, and I think that this would take that away.”

Wendy Philbrick also noted that the reason why her family chose to live on her street was because they knew that their children would be future drivers, and they needed a road that allowed for extra cars.

After several others iterated and reinforced the points that came before them, the discussion came to a close with resident Matt Newberry, who said “I’ve come to just express my concern, because this is just going to create feuds with people over driveway parking and the limited space there.”

After the locals had spoken, Mayor Stanton-Terk thanked everyone for their comments, and explained that this law would not be voted on any time soon.

“Public safety is our number one priority. We are going to continue this conversation, this is long from over,” she finished.