northeast Calgary residents pave entire front lawns

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by troutman

What if you paved for basketball or street hockey reasons? Allergic to grass?

Still not allowed to park on your "lawn" regardless of material.

[RedMileDJ]

I used to live in Martindale. We moved out back in June.

On our street, and I believe You Need a Thneed lived on my block, there was next to no street parking. We had a parking pad, in the back alley, but it was difficult to use, due to the narrow alley, ruts, etc. We'd use it when we could. But I can tell you, all my neighours, up and down that back alley, always had garbage, mattresses, old tvs, you name it, piled up on their parking pads. Or there were garages being used as "homes."

We lived one of those narrower 2 story homes. Once you parked in front of your home, there was no room behind or in front of you to put a second vehicle.

On several occasions, the neighbours around us would park on their grass. I can't say I blame the people in these areas for paving their lawns. Is it any different than say...making the lawn area maintenance free and putting down gravel? I suppose so. The concrete is ugly, but people are going to think of ways to claim parking, especially when you have multiple families living under one roof.

[MoneyGuy]

Couple of points.

Doesn't Calgary prohibit throwing snow from sidewalks on the road? Someone said that. It should be illegal and enforced in these cases.

If Calgary doesn't have a bylaw prohibiting this full-front pavement it should be brought in to stop this kind of thing before others do the same thing. Imagine entire neighbours that look like this. I know it's unlikely but it's possible.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

No acceptable parking before? Those are two car garages that I see attached so conveniently right to the house...
So 4 spots to park without street parking anything. And yes the concrete jungle is ridiculous as it is now.

My favourite part is the DB way that white car is parked in the "new driveway" there. Pretty sure the front end is sticking out over his neighbour's lawn, and the rear is gonna make it difficult for someone to get out of their car if they park on the (original) left side of the driveway. How much extra room for parking have you even created if you're just gonna park like that?

Reminds me of Elaine in the extra wide, 2 lane highway. So luxurious..

[The Ditch]

that's so ugly and as already stated against bylaw, also they're taking away public parking, water drainage will be a problem and of course they're going to throw all their snow on to the street. Why do people have to be such asses, I feel bad for the neighbours have fun selling your house if I came to look at a place and saw that I would just turn around and leave.

[Regular_John]

From the metro article:

Steiner believes many people in Saddle Ridge, where the lots are particularly wide, are doing it to provide parking for non-conforming secondary suites.

Uhh what? Has it really gotten so bad that having enough room of a utility box between houses is considered particularly wide now?

[ranchlandsselling]

So it must be illegal to park at the end of someones driveway correct? How is this enforced? With that in mind, I'm assuming you can park behind one of these expanded driveways, but who would enforce this?
If my neighbors did this I'd probably buy a cheap $50 beater, insure/register it and park it as close to their real driveway as possible blocking in that MF.

[ranchlandsselling]

Originally Posted by The Ditch

that's so ugly and as already stated against bylaw, also they're taking away public parking, water drainage will be a problem and of course they're going to throw all their snow on to the street. Why do people have to be such asses, I feel bad for the neighbours have fun selling your house if I came to look at a place and saw that I would just turn around and leave.

While I hate it and thinks it's awful, I'm not following the "it's taking away public parking" part? Might be related to my question above, I'm assuming you can still park behind this "new driveway" although my assumption has no basis really.

[The Ditch]

I guarantee you if loser paved driveway is parked there, and I went and parked in front of his car, in what should be public parking, loser would throw a tantrum claiming im blocking their driveway

[Teh_Bandwagoner]

Originally Posted by habernac

at least they put driveways in. A few blocks from my house, they just parked on the lawn. Looked awesome in the spring.

No doubt. My ex-neighbor used to have soooo many cars for some reason. I think he was buying and re-selling them. So they had two cars in the garage, three on the driveway, and when that wasn't enough, he cut an opening in the back yard fence and parked a car right on the lawn. A concrete pad would have looked gorgeous compared to the weed-garden they had out back.

However, their driveway looked like ass too because they also happened to be too lazy to shovel their snow and opted to salt everything instead. They're gone now, but the driveway is all deteriorated to hell.

Give me this look any day over my old neighbour's crap-fest

[flylock shox]

That is fugly, but it seems to me to be a by-product of a lack of affordable housing in the city and relatively poor public transit alternatives. What are you supposed to do if you can only afford one home and have a family (or extended family) of 5 or more adults all living under one roof, and all requiring vehicles?

On the bright side, if you had several houses in a row like this across the street from each other, think of the epic street hockey games you could organize.

[The Ditch]

how about you park on the street i guarantee you most of their legs aren't broken if they have to walk half a block i promise you they won't die.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by photon

One guy near where I live did this, I didn't think it was about parking, I thought maybe it was because concrete is easier to maintain than grass

I wonder what it'd look like if it was painted green. Or astroturfed.

[Bean]

I used to live down the street from this winner. It wasn't about a lack of parking space as there is a park and 100 feet of curb space kitty corner from his house.

And it isn't a money thing as it is a half million dollar home in Panorama.

[Raekwon]

Looks like they run a business out of the garage?

[Bob]

That looks like parking for a tenant given the way the garage has presumably been turned into a rental suite.

Or maybe it's a business? I don't know how comfortable a converted garage will be in the winter.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

Looks like they run a business out of the garage?

Looks more like an old show home to me.

[calgarygeologist]

It seems like a lot of people are paving their lawns in an attempt to go low maintenance.

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/184...6930d6fde29e44

[RedMileDJ]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

It seems like a lot of people are paving their lawns in an attempt to go low maintenance.

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/184...6930d6fde29e44

The low maintenance angle makes sense. For example, at my new home, the front lawn grass is on a bit of decline. Very steep. So we're thinking of putting in blocks and doing a 2 tier bush / rock garden thing. The kids can play in the backyard. Safer in my opinion (away from the busy road) and the backyard is much larger.

As for what these picture show...it's ugly. But I get that they want driveway space.

[calgarygeologist]

I'm a bit envious of this guys driveway/layout. It would be awesome for a basketball net and playing road hockey etc. There are actually a bunch of homes like this in Citadel backing onto Stoney Trail.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.14994...9WqK45vsDg!2e0