Brookfield’s village government continues to work the weeds of local governance, finding new, often small, but important opportunities to improve its services.
Right now the eagle eye is trained on parking spaces for residents with some form of mobility challenge. We take these for granted, right? We might chirp when it turns out the open parking space is actually set aside for a neighbor or, in a commercial area, a shopper who needs the accommodation.
But do we think about how a disability parking spot on a residential block is secured in the first place? Better yet, how do they ever go away? And are there ways to better secure that parking spot for its intended user?
No to all three of those questions. We’ve never thought about it.
Brookfield’s village staff, though, is thinking about it. From public safety to public works the entire process has been reviewed, including a discussion about continuing to impose a $25 annual renewal fee for each spot.
Here’s what we’ve learned: The exact amount, down to the penny (and that may be overkill), it costs to install a disabled parking sign. It’s $161. We rounded up by four cents. The village also wants to start painting the curb associated with the parking space as an added visual clue for drivers to back off the spot. That will cost $62, rounded up 32 cents if our math is right.
That’s one case for continuing the annual fee. It gradually pays for the out-of-pocket costs the village incurs to establish the parking spot. But here’s the other thing. Requiring the modest annual renewal fee also surfaces set-aside spots that no longer need to be set aside. People with a mobility issue, just like other people, move out of town, into assisted living, and sometimes they die. Cancelling the special parking space is not top of mind while packing up a house, or when the executor of a will works to sell a house.
The village board nodded favorably at the staff review during a recent meeting. We expect the action to be confirmed shortly. And that will be another small win and sign of incremental progress in Brookfield.
Going up on Burlington
A long proposed, thoroughly discussed plan to construct a 22-unit luxury apartment building on Burlington Avenue in Riverside is a step closer to construction after the village board approved the project in mid-January.
Now it is on the developer, who has been working steadily, to secure a building permit within six months and to complete the 5-story building within 18 months.
This is a victory for intentional planning in Riverside. Adding higher-end housing, adding density along the rail lines, is exactly what the village has chosen. Balancing that with the inevitable, often overblown, worries about scale has been well handled here.
What’s next?
