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Paying to park in your own driveway? Pittsburgh working to fix ordinance

PITTSBURGH — Finding a place to park is never fun. But if you have a driveway, it should be simple.

Right?

That’s not the case for some people in Squirrel Hill.

They say they’re worried that parking on their own property could cost them hundreds of dollars in fines.

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An ordinance has been in place for decades, but was rarely enforced until about two years ago.

Pittsburgh City Council has vowed to change it. But it remains in place.

"It's really to stop somebody from putting in an illegal parking pad. But it went to the extreme and that's what we don't want to see happen,” said Pittsburgh City Councilman Corey O’Connor.

However, it did happen about two years ago to several Squirrel Hill and Wind Gap residents after the city began enforcing the decades old ordinance.

Unless you get a $225 exemption, this ordinance says vehicles have to be parked between 15 and 30 feet back from the street when on a property. That’s the case even if they’re parking in a driveway or a parking pad.

Channel 11's Aaron Martin spoke to several frustrated residents, including one man who says he got a citation two years ago.

“We’ve been trying to pass this for two years. It’s really more of a technicality than anything else,” O’Connor said.

According to O’Connor, any fines from the ordinance have been wiped out, and the city is working on a plan to grandfather-in residents.

It’s a slow process that he says he hopes to wrap up soon.

“There were so many things that we weren’t calculating that just started popping up,” O’Connor said. “That’s why we’ve tried to get the correct language, so everybody’s covered and this crazy ordinance never comes up again.”

O’Connor told Martin that there’s no timetable for when the ordinance will be changed, but he’s scheduled a meeting with the zoning administrator in the next couple of weeks.

WPXI

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