Apartment Resident Parking: Q&A With Flats at Oval Leasing Agent
In Fort Collins, one of the problems with parking can be seen at apartments complexes. There are a few aspects that go into why it is complicated to park at apartments, especially near campus. After an interview with Alina Moskalenko, leasing agent at Flats at Oval, I was able to determine a few of these reasons and why they make parking hard for residents.
How many residents live at Flats at The Oval and how many parking spots are available?
So we have fifty-two parking spots, nine of which are covered, and forty-three are uncovered. The apartment building can house up to ninety-nine people at a time.
What is the price difference between the covered and uncovered parking spots
The uncovered parking spots are $75 each month and the covered parking spots are $85 each month.
What happens when someone’s assigned parking spot is taken?
So it all depends on the resident. So if a resident comes in and sees that someone else is parked in their spot, they usually just call the office and say there's a car in my parking spot. Sometimes they will catch the resident and the situation just resolves immediately. In any other case, if we can’t solve it, we have the resident call the towing company. We have signs posted around the parking lot, it is Schmer’s Towing. The towing company then confirms with us when a vehicle needs to be towed. We don’t survey the parking lot, it is just kind of resident trust.
Where can a resident park if they are waiting on someone’s car to be towed from their spot?
Yeah so we have like six or so twenty minute parking spots. Normally if you let us know the situation we will allow you to park in those spots until the situation is resolved. It is usually fine since we own those parking spots for both the property and also Ye’s Poke Station and Mugs Coffee Lounge.
Do the two businesses, Ye’s Poke Station and Mugs Coffee Lounge employees have a place to park?
I believe the managers do, but I am not entirely sure. We do have a parking agreement with Fort Collins Parking Services so I believe they fall under that.
What options are there for residents who do not have an assigned parking spot?
Our agreement with Fort Collins Parking Services is that if you are a resident you can get a parking permit for the streets around Flats at Oval. There is one free street parking permit per unit. So if one resident in a three bedroom got the free one, the other two must spend the $15 annual fee on a street permit to avoid tickets and towing. We had one resident last year that had a problem with it, but it was more so with Parking Services.
Addressing the first complication I see, there are not enough parking spots for how many residents this apartment can hold. Having fifty-two spots with a max of ninety-nine residents leave about 47 residents to finding alternative parking. We also must consider that some people do not have cars. Whether or not there are enough, this seems to be a common problem among many complexes. There is simply just not enough spots.
Along with this, parking is very expensive. If you decide to get a covered spot to protect against inclement weather, you will be paying an extra $1000 every year.
There is also not always a guarantee your spot will be available. Getting someone else towed is not a great feeling, because we all know how expensive it is, but sometimes there's not choice. Along with this if the problem is not quickly solved, you then face the fear of being towed from your temporary spot.
Now if you had to resort to street parking, this can be even more stressful. If acquiring a permit from the city wasn’t difficult enough, we have to worry about so much being parked on the street.
