For almost 20 years, I've owned a large house near 11th Street. It's a properly licensed rental property with a married couple as tenants that the neighbors like very much. The tenants haven't asked, but I'd like to explore the possibility of using part of the yard for parking. (The house runs street to street.) There are other houses on the block that use the yard for parking already, but I have no idea whether or not they are doing that legally. Could anyone direct me to where I should start? L+I?

Thanks in advance for your help.

L&I would probably have something to say about it, as would the streets department. How do you get your car in there? Is there a curb cut somewhere to access the yard from the front or back or do you have to drive over the sidewalk?

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It would probably be ok as long as you put the car on cinderblocks to make it look really white trash instead of just kinda white trash-and don't forget the pink flamingos, garden gnome, and birdbath filled with beercans.

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Peter Cetera:
Sometimes I just forget
Say things I might regret
It breaks my heart to see you crying

Sounds like you MAY be in Bella Vista ( 6th to 11th and Washington to South) Please log onto BVTW.org website and email Greg Pastore the Zoning Chair; Greg will set you right on all this.

Plug for BVTW; we could use active member/volunteers to help staff committees and assist in running the organization.

it's one of those tiny streets that are driveable, the trash is collected there but I do not have a sidewalk.

Alesis, the yard is old brick walls covered with baltic dark green ivy and is landscaped and bricked. The back wall need to be replaced (it's leaning) so it seemed like a good time to think about putting in a victorian wooden fence with a gate, definitely not cinderblock like some of the neighbors are doing!

I was joking...I don't think you should have much of a problem doing it, especially if your other neighbors are doing it.

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Peter Cetera:
Sometimes I just forget
Say things I might regret
It breaks my heart to see you crying

As long as your pull-off is in a street so small that it doesn't allow parking you shoukd be fine. The problem would arise if you required a curb cut-out for a drive way that would take away a public space. In addition, as you pointed out, there is already precedent on the block for the practice. The neighbors should be happy to have your car off the street freeing up another space.

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If you can't serve as a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning.

My yard faces onto a narrow back street and we've been using the yard for parking for years without any problems or complaints. As long as you aren't blocking the sidewalk or street, I doubt you'll have a problem.