Not every home in Lawrence has a driveway.

That’s why the Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday backed down from an ordinance that would help police crack down on long-term street parking in city neighborhoods.

“We have received a lot of e-mails that pointed out unintended consequences,” Mayor Mike Rundle said.

Ed Tato told commissioners that the ordinance would be a problem in his East Lawrence neighborhood, which has few driveways. Residents have no other option but to park on the street, he said.

“I myself have found, after reading the paper, that I’ve broken this ordinance several times — sometimes I don’t drive for a couple of days,” said Tato, president of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Assn.

The city has long had ordinances prohibiting parking in one spot on Lawrence streets for more than 48 hours. The codes are designed to keep the streets from serving as a storage lot for abandoned vehicles.

The ordinance was tough to enforce, however. Any car owner who was in danger of getting a ticket — or getting the car towed — could simply drive the vehicle forward a couple of feet.

“There were some parkers that were barely moving their vehicles,” Assistant City Manager Dave Corliss said Tuesday. “They were clearly not complying with the intent of the ordinance.”

The new ordinance would have solved the enforcement problem by requiring vehicle owners to move around the block or across the street to avoid a ticket. Moving the car up and down the same block would have resulted in a $30 ticket.

Tato was joined Tuesday by a half-dozen residents from older Lawrence neighborhoods, where driveways are rare.

Michael Hawkins, who lives in the 700 block of Arkansas, said he had received a ticket.

“I have two vehicles, I’m retired, and I don’t drive both of them every day,” Hawkins told the commission. “I’m one of those guilty of backing up three feet, going forward two feet.”

6News video: Attempt to tighten parking ordinance given red light

Jack Lawson, who lives in the 1000 block of Connecticut, was angry.

“I don’t think if people came into town and left their horses two days, they’d shoot them,” he said. “Our cars are our horses.”

The ordinance was championed by Betty Alderson, who lives in the Centennial Neighborhood south of the Kansas University campus. Long-term street parking in that area, she said, has become an eyesore in her neighborhood.

“What we’re faced with in certain areas are people who are not permanent residents who have five or six cars on the street,” Alderson said. “It is a problem if you can’t get anywhere near your house sometimes.”

Commissioners said they want to solve such concerns, but without causing problems in other neighborhoods. City staffers said they would do more research on the ordinance and send recommendations to the city’s Traffic Safety Commission.

No timeline was given for resolution of the issue.

Use of public funds to buy property OK’d

The Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday gave preliminary approval for the Lawrence Regional Technology Center and the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce to use public money to buy a west Lawrence office building that will provide low-cost office space and services to budding technology companies.

“This has been a long time in coming,” Mayor Mike Rundle said.

The two economic development groups announced in June that they had struck a deal to buy the former headquarters building of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America at 1617 St. Andrews Drive.

County and city commissioners must approve the purchase because the groups will use $605,000 that the two governments set aside for an incubator building in the mid-1990s.

LRTC currently leases about 3,500 square feet of the 11,000-square-foot office building. By purchasing the building, the center will have more room to house young, promising technology companies.