Restless natives

There's a no more contentious issue with Bay Ridge residents than parking, or rather the lack thereof. It's actually easier to find street parking in Manhattan than it is in many Brooklyn bedroom neighborhoods, including here.

When I composed my list of requirements for house hunting, a garage was at the very top. No kidding, I would have bought a house without a roof before one with no garage. The last thing I wanted to do was to play car hockey on alternate side day or to come home dead tired at 2am and have to park six blocks away. I also had several nice, theftable motorcycles to protect.

Lately, Brooklyn driveways have become a hot issue. Rather, the proliferation of illegal ones, which have always been a sore point with the locals, have come under fire from politicians.

One of the most prized NYC building permits you can get is called a curb cut permit. Basically, a curb cut permit is a license from DOT giving you ownership of the patch of street in front of your home or business. Furthermore, NYPD will enforce those ownership rights.

Curb cut permit applications are supposed to be accompanied by plans for legal off-street parking. In almost every neighborhood in the five boros you're not allowed to just park your car on what would otherwise be your front lawn. If you're not building a garage and don't have outside parking beside or behind your property you're not supposed to have a curb cut. There are additional restrictions qualifying a property for a curb cut.

You don't need to spend more than 30 seconds in this neighborhood to see some pretty flagrant violations of those laws, including driveways so shallow that cars hang out halfway over the sidewalk. The Brooklyn boro president's office commissioned a study in 1998 which found that 90% of the curb cuts in their sample area were illegal -- mostly constructed by bandit contractors without a permit.

In many cases, these illegal driveways have existed for years and through several changes of home ownership. Nevertheless, they're still illegal and if our local councilperson, Vincent Gentile, has his way they will be dealt with. He's sponsored legislation to crack down on existing illegal curb cuts, especially those which violate the restrictions on setbacks and utility clearances. Fines are up to $2500, doubling every 60 days until the homeowner replaces the curb at his own expense.

The question is, will it pass? It won't affect me either way because my garage and driveway were constructed sometime before WW2, at least according to the 1942 tax photo I've got of my house. But a lot of these illegal curb cuts were built in the last 20 years, including a string of them on 67th Street which violate curb cut regulations in so many ways I'm surprised they haven't been busted already.

And will it even solve the problem of creating more curbside parking? Evicting cars currently parked in those illegal driveways will just add them to the parade of vehicles circling the neighborhood every evening looking for street parking.

It's almost impossible to get a curb cut permit anymore. Each application has to be reviewed by the local community board, which is typically hostile to motor vehicles in general. Maybe the real solution is to make it easier and cheaper for home owners to get those permits so long as they agree to partner with a neighbor or two allowing them to park in that driveway too.

That's what I do. My immediate neighbors have parking privileges in my curb cut, with the explicit understanding that if I come home at 3am I can roust them out of bed to move their friggin cars. However, I've had more than a couple of arrogant idiots ticketed and towed for parking there without asking. I use a commercial towing company which has its impound lot way out by JFK airport. Between the cost of the ticket, the tow, the impound fee and the $40 cab ride I don't figure on seeing them in my driveway again.