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Getting EV Zoning Standards For Parking - A Quest

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So, taking from the initiative I saw pushed forward by Lanny and their success in passing a law up in Howard County, MD, I wanted to start this thread as I embark on this journey to attempt to get something like this pushed forward here in Prince William County, VA. Maybe this will help be a guide of a sorts of what to do, what not to do, who knows? I am just starting the initiative so we will see where it goes. I am also open to suggestions by others for where else to take this, and of course if you have had experience in this area I would love some additional direction.

So to start with I reached out to my Supervisor, Honorable Frank J. Principi, for my district in order to initiate this and just get a feeling for where I should go from here. This is what I sent him:

I am a current resident of Woodbridge, and Prince William County, and I was curious if you or anyone else in PWC has considered passing any restrictions on parking to protect Electric Vehicles. I know our county is not nearly as progressive as other parts of the state, but with the new Tesla Supercharger put in at Potamic Mills Mall, this is likely to be just the start of public/private parking that accommodates Electric Vehicles.

As a driver of an Electric Car it is very discouraging when you need a place to charge to get there and find the parking spot blocked by a non-plugin vehicle. We in the EV communiting affectionately refer to it as ICEing (Internal Combustion Engine) and it can be the difference between some people being able to make it home at night, or just plain continue on their journey. If someone blocked a gasoline pump would that not be frustrating?


Many other places across the country have established local laws ranging from ticketing to towing and other steps in between. Many places have started to treat them on the same/similar level as blocking a handicap parking spot. Part of this comes down to people's ignorance of the changing world around them, but part of it is that people just don't care.


I appreciate your time on this subject and for your convenience here is a law that was passed by our neighbors to the north in Howard County, MD. I believe a simple law like this would go a long way toward bringing our laws up to the 21st Century. In this particular instance, it requires that the business owner choose to install appropriate signage to restrict the parking spots. In this way restriction is voluntary, but should a business choose to restrict it gives them a means to enforce.

I attached the law that was just recently passed in the email, it is actually very nicely written and I do like it. It allows property owners to choose to allow enforcement or not. This is forward thinking because eventually there will likely be more charging spots than non-charging spots at some locations, and businesses might not want to lock down all the parking spots.

It is interesting to note that outside of I think one J1772 at a Walgreens and the Tesla Superchargers at the mall, the only other charging in our county right now is at the dealerships... Which is crazy because if you just go barely to the north, you will find tons of charging! So while my initiative is likely to be a little jumping of the gun as it were we will see what happens.

So after my email which was sent today, much to my surprise I got a response back tonight.

We will look into proposing the appropriate zoning laws to facilitate EV charging stations. Stay tuned!

Sincerely,
Supervisor Frank J. Principi
PW Board Of County Supervisors

My response:

Thank you for the very prompt response and action, if there is anything I can do to assist in this process please let me know, I would even be more than happy to come down and speak with the board. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

Anyway, will keep everyone posted as this slowly makes progress (or gets randomly killed off, I don't know, haha!)

So the journey has been started and we will see where it goes from here!
 
Anyway, will keep everyone posted as this slowly makes progress (or gets randomly killed off, I don't know, haha!)

So the journey has been started and we will see where it goes from here!

Thanks! I look forward to hearing how this goes. The voluntary-enforcement makes sense to me; it sounds like if they choose to label it EV-only, then it is EV-only and can be enforced. That makes a lot of sense to me!
 
Hey Chickensevil, this is great!

I admire your quest to try to get legislation in Prince William County to help keep the ICE cars from blocking EV charging stations. Starting this thread to share resources is a great idea. Thanks for taking the initiative!

It just so happens that today, September 29, 2014 is the day that the new law in Howard County took effect. Woohoo! I looked back at my emails and found the very first correspondence that I sent to a council member, similar to your email, to get the ball rolling was dated March 12th. Have patience, this may take a while. :)

My advice is to try and keep in touch with your County Supervisor or his assistant. Check in every few weeks. See if you can understand how they are approaching the bill. Offer them some boilerplate examples that have worked in other jurisdictions.

One thing to be very careful of is to make sure they don’t include any provisions that would have unintended consequences. For an example of a potentially good law that went horribly bad, read Chelsea Sexton’s story about California AB-475.

Below is a video of a work session on the Montgomery County bill. You can get a taste of the kinds of questions and objections that arise among lawmakers who are not as familiar with EVs as we are.

Lanny

 
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