9799-07 Vacation Alley Washington Huey O'Brien Oak Grove

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J~ . . PE r' \~~~' Office of the Mayor NEWS RELEASE October 10, 2007 5:30 p.m. City to monitor lawn parking under new ordinance Contact: Chuck Leone, City Attorney, 235-9241, Property owners who park vehicles on their lawns during Saturday's University of Notre Dame -home football game will have their activities monitored and documented by city Code Enforcement regulators and South Bend police officers. The city's new special events parking ordinance was passed Sept. 24 by the South Bend Common Council and is now in effect. Documentation collected during game day will be referred to the city's Legal Department for enforcement decisions. Saturday's home game against Boston College is the first since the ordinance's passage. Under the legislation now in effect, city property owners wanting to park vehicles on lawns during Notre Dame home football games need to submit an application and pay a $5 fee by 4:45 p.m. the Thursday before game day. Violators risk a citation and a $50 fine for the first offense. Subsequent offenses will result in higher fines and the risk of cancellation or prohibition of future lawn parking. Fines can reach as high as $2,500 for chronic violators. City law prohibits parking in front yards in residential neighborhoods, but the new special events ordinance defined exceptions for Residential One-Day Conditional Use lawn parking with specific terms and conditions. As of today, no applications had been filed with the city's Department of Administration and Finance for aspecial-events parking permit, although about one dozen applications were requested by residents. "This first weekend of enforcement will give us the sense of the amount of resources the city needs to commit to ensuring that public safety is maintained," said City Attorney Chuck Leone. "The extensive discussion of this ordinance before its passage should help provide a high level of cooperation and compliance,."