Brookline considers restricting ZipCar

By adamg on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 3:36pm

Seems some of its parking spaces violate town zoning codes. Town Meeting turns the key on the issue next month. At least one Town Meeting member says if you let ZipCar park wherever it wants, who knows what unspeakable things could happen next.

Neighborhoods:

Brookline

Topics:

Driving

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Comments

this whole parking thing is

By anon on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 4:00pm.

this whole parking thing is BS. There are overnight resident spots in several locations on Beacon St. These were formerly metered spots. It seems quite hypocritical.

Good

By Kaz on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 4:16pm.

Kick them out of Brookline. That just means more cars for me to choose from right across the border in Brighton. They recently redistributed their spaces away from me a bit. I could stand to use a few of those coming back.

Zipcar basically stands for just about everything right in moving urban transportation forward. If their parking is violating town zoning codes, then it seems to me the antiquated zoning codes need to be brought up to the modern (and future) paradigm...not NIMBY'ing Zipcar's efforts back into the stone age.

As someone once said,

By anon on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 4:17pm.

As someone once said, "Entering Brookline. Leave all fun at the door."

ZipCar

By issacg on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 5:10pm.

While I don't necessarily share Ms. Jozwicki's concerns, I think that one reason this has not been raised in Brighton is because many of the things concerning Jozwicki are already established and accepted practices in Brighton (e.g., paving over backyards or front yards to rent out spaces).

Contrary to what the article says, I think the issue is not really about zipcar. It is about other commercial entities taking advantage of the zoning by-law intended to encourage the zipcars. Laws like this must be very carefully drafted to allow the targeted practice while prohibiting undesirable practices. The trick is to avoid an equal protection or similar claim by demonstrating that the desired practice and the undesirable one are not similarly situated.