Arising from complaints by city operational units, the DeKalb Plan Commission discussed possibilities of alleviating overcrowded parking lots in various areas of the city at Wednesday’s meeting.

Community Development Director Paul Rasmussen said various complaints from such businesses that conduct snowplowing and streetsweeping operations have complained that an overflow of cars in and around apartments near NIU consistently are reaching capacity and spilling out to side streets.

Rasmussen said complaints, however, haven’t been persistent from the actual landlords and tenants who occupy the housing complexes. Principle Planner Russ Farnum said community development may consider conducting a survey that would look at how overcrowded various parking lots are at certain times of the day.

The survey, however, likely would cost a lot of money and be overly tedious if done manually. Farnum suggested looking at satellite images of parking lots as a less consuming, cost-effective way to better analyze overcrowded parking lots at all times of the day.

Another reason parking lots are said to be overcrowded is because of a large number of broken down cars that remain stalled in parking spots for prolonged periods of time. Plan commission member John Guio considered a process that would have landlords deal with stalled cars within their own properties.

The plan commission also convened with community development in a heated discussion over the problem that gravel driveways have caused the city. Rasmussen said when heavy rains occur, gravel driveways oftentimes leak into city sewerlines, backing up the sewer flow. Rasmussen said this causes flooding and is a primary reason why streets have backed up with standing water in the past.

Guio, however, didn’t agree, contending that there are no numbers to back up the theory that there are too many gravel driveways and/or resident complaints regarding this problem. Rasmussen said he would look into finding exact numbers, but that these complaints also have ensued from alderman complaints.

Possible solutions discussed were to either have residents with gravel driveways pave them or when they sell their house, they have to then pave their driveways. Guio again disagreed.

“It’s like saying all houses in DeKalb have to have shaped roofs or blue houses,” Guio said.

Plan Commissioner Herb Rubin said the idea is OK as long as people aren’t immediately forced to pave their driveways.

Rasmussen bolstered his argument by sharing a similar method in place at Hoffman Estates that requires larger houses have implemented sprinkler systems in their yard before they can sell their homes.