The City of Cranbrook responded to a letter from Pioneer Lodge dealing with parking issues and snow removal concerns during the winter.
The letter came from Melanie Fiorentino, director of services at Cranbrook Society for Community Living, and was highlighted in CAO Wayne Staudt’s Administration Update.
One issue Fiorentino mentioned in the letter was with Handicap parking.
“We received Handicap parking designation on December 5, 2011 for 134r - 111h Avenue South,” Fiorentino wrote. “Our experience is that the parking is being used by offices on 10th Avenue and 2nd Street.”
At the July 13 meeting, Staudt said that is easily remedied.
“All she has to do it let bylaw (enforcement) know that there is inappropriate use of handicap parking and bylaw will deal with that,” Staudt said.
Fiorentino wrote that the parking problem overlaps into a snow removal problem as well.
“We also struggle with the snow removal/wlnd rows — we get it all cleaned out and again the parking is used by offices on 10th Avenue and 2nd Street and/or the City plows fill it back in,” she wrote.
She said the windrows were also a problem for the 7th Street Residence — a medical residence housing five individuals in wheelchairs.
“It is very difficult to maneuver these individuals over the windrows, we understand there is a responsibility on behalf of the residence to clear their own area, this is very difficult to achieve given there are only two staff working during the day and one during the night,” she wrote.
She said the staff’s number one responsibility is to provide care to the residents.
“As a not for profit organization, our funding is very limited and makes it difficult to hire snow removal,” she wrote.
Staudt replied to that as well.
“As you know, as a result of plowing streets there are windrows created in driveways and her request was that we come by and shovel out the windrows in the driveways,” CAO Wayne Staudt said. “We don’t do that for any citizens or any business, or any hospital, or anybody.”
Staudt said the city doesn’t provide that service.
“Other people have complained about windrows and my response to them is ‘if you can get your whole neighbourhood, your whole block , to agree they don’t want their street plowed, they won’t have a windrow anymore. But we don’t seem to ever get that response, so we do get the request to deal with the windrows.”
Staudt said the windrows are an unfortunate issue we all have to deal with.
“But it’s either street plowed or windrows,” he said. “Take your choice there.”
The letter also talked about a request for a sidewalk in front of Creekside Apartments at 1500 1st Street South.
“We don’t have any plans at this time to install a sidewalk in front of that building and until it comes up as a priority on our priority list according to our infrastructure capital plans we won’t be installing any sidewalk there,” Staudt said. He added that city staff would be sending the response if council sees no issues.