After examining several other municipalities’ parking ordinances, including Lago Vista’s, the Point Venture Village Council is ready to begin crafting its own. The research was good for getting ideas, but Councilman Jeff Warneke warned against relying on the other ordinances in creating one for Point Venture.
“One of the things that keeps popping up over and over is various municipal organizations and other entities like TML (Texas Municipal League) from different states have all said when you’re creating a parking ordinance it is best not to go find something else and build from it,” he said. “They said it is best to figure out what your needs are and build from there.”
The Council is looking to address two separate issues the village is facing with parking. The first is safety. During the busy summer months, cars line the sides of the streets in the village, creating a dangerous situation for both pedestrians and motorists.
The second issue is aesthetics. Village residents have long complained about a specific case, and after discussion with its counsel, the local property owners’ association said it does not have the ability to rectify the matter.
“I think what we need to do as a Council is for each of us to come up with just a summary of what we feel the parking ordinance should be looking at, the problems that we have,” Mayor Richard Shinn said. “Like we have a particular case where there’s boats and trailers and pontoon boats and cars all parked out in plain view coming toward the entrance of our village.”
When Council discussed the idea of requiring boats and automobiles to be parked on an improved surface, several councilmen brought up the issue that some residents might just pave their entire yard in order to store their vehicles in the front yard as before. Councilman Bob Helton agreed it could be an issue, but cautioned against trying to address surfacing specifically in the parking ordinance.
“This needs to be a parking ordinance, not a building ordinance, so if we want to do something about that we need to do something else,” he said. “I don’t want people coming in who are trying to build in this community to have to go to 15 different places to find out where the rules are.”
Shinn asked the other councilmen to send their ideas for the ordinance to him and said they would discuss the matter further at the next meeting.