No summer street parking in Rockaways "keeps the riff-raff out"

Image source: Padriac on Flickr

Now that summer is over, street parking resumes on the streets of some neighborhoods in the Rockaways. The NY Times reports about this restrictive parking situation during the summer and holidays in the neighborhoods of Belle Harbor and Neponsit (that’s where that $5.1 million house was sold), two rather upscale parts of Queens. In Belle Harbor, you can’t park there on summer weekends and holidays, and in Neponsit, the streets are off limits to parking all summer long. This has frustrated visitors who drive here to enjoy the public beach, or people that don’t want to pay the $10 parking fee at neighboring Jacob Riis Park, and would prefer to park on the street.

Residents embrace the parking restrictions because if they weren’t in place, the streets would be congested with people looking for parking, as well as cars lining the streets. One person didn’t mince words – in former Belle Harbor resident Donald D’Avanzo’s opinion, locals “want to keep the riffraff out.”

These parking restrictions also contribute to home prices – if your home in one of these neighborhoods has off-street parking like a private driveway (or even a shared driveway), it can add thousands of dollars to the price of a home.

Seasonal Parking Bans Please Rockaways Residents but Irk Visitors [NYT]