LITH To Explore Changes On Commercial Vehicle Parking

In one of those coincidences that can make village board meetings so entertaining, two residents complained to Lake in the Hills trustees about restrictions on commercial vehicle parking.  One claimed there weren't enough, the other charged there were too many.

Marje Powley asked why the village had regulations about parking Winnebagos but nothing to cover box vans, landscape trailers, snowplows and forklifts.  "I literally had a neighbor with part of a semi parked in his driveway," she said.

Trustee Steve Harlfinger, himself a contractor, defended commercial vehicle parking.  "You have home businesses and independent contractors.  That vehicle is their livelihood. Parking offsite increases their overhead,"

Even so, what's the difference between a banned RV and a big truck, Powley asked?

Harlfinger said maybe it was that the commercial vehicle "moved on a daily or weekly basis."
He said storage parking might be a different matter.  "when you have something decrepit, that may be a safety concern."

Contractor Terry Karder followed Powley to complain that LITH police have been ticketing his work van because it has license plates that put it in a banned heavy truck category.  "If I lose the van, I lose my job," said Carter.  "The only difference (between the truck and a permitted one) is two extra leaf springs."

Village President Ed Plaza and trustee Paul Mulcahy argued trying to slice ever finer distinctions among permissible and forbidden vehicles held the promise of endless argument that would still satisfy no one.  "This is a can of worms," said Plaza.

"This may be a can of worms worth opening," countered Trustee Denise Barreto.  "I'll bet you this is a bigger problem than we know about."

Plaza said in that case the way to address things would be via zoning regulations and he planned to meet with the Planning and Zoning Commission, anyway.  "We'll put together a committee Thursday."

"We'll have a little think tank," Plaza said.