Hospital neighbours saddle up for tonight's city council meeting

They want the city to rope in drivers who dodge hospital parking fees by parking free in front of their houses

They're back! The ratepayers of Saddle Crescent want a neighbourhood parking prohibition from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday

Two years after its last visit to city council, a posse from Saddle Crescent will again be trying tonight to have its quiet homesteads declared a no-parking zone.

"We, the residents of Saddle Crescent, petition the City of Sault Ste. Marie to install and enforce 'no parking' signs on the entirety of the crescent in an effort to deter citizens from parking in front of our homes and walking to the hospital via the catwalk," says a petition signed by all the residents of the quiet residential street.

Well, almost all the residents.

The inhabitants of one Saddle Crescent address couldn't be reached, says petition organizer Carissa McAulay.

The petitioners want a total parking prohibition on Saddle Crescent from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Cost of the 'no parking' signs is estimated at $2,000.

Offenders would be subject to parking fines.

Saddle Crescent is located immediately east of Sault Area Hospital, just across the Hub Trail.

Residents complain that their street has become a free parking lot for people who don't want to pay the hospital's parking rates.

As SooToday reported two years ago, Ward 3 Coun. Matthew Shoemaker originally introduced a motion calling for a Saddle Crescent parking ban on August 21, 2017.

But Shoemaker and his then-wardmate Judy Hupponen withdrew their resolution after hearing from other residents who opposed a blanket parking ban because it would prohibit them from parking on their own street.

Instead, city council approved an amended resolution calling on city staff to develop alternative ways of discouraging hospital patrons and staff from parking on both Saddle Crescent and "other adjacent or abutting streets."

The motion to be presented at tonight's council meeting was prepared by the city's legal staff in response to the 2017 resolution and the petition, which was signed by Saddle Crescent residents in June and July of this year.

Tonight's city council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.