Dispute Over Truck Parking Turning Ugly For 'City Beautiful'

By ABBY GOODNOUGH The New York Times

Published: Sep 2, 2007

CORAL GABLES - Newcomers to this resolutely lush and lovely city would do well to peruse its "Citizen's Guide to Code Enforcement" before settling in.

They will find that pet snakes are forbidden, houses must be painted a city-approved hue and residents cannot so much as screen in their pools without permits.

But last month, a state appeals court panel struck down one of the affluent city's premier zoning requirements: a ban on parking pickups in driveways and residential streets at night.

Lowell Kuvin, an aspiring lawyer with an emerald-green Ford F150 pickup, sued Coral Gables in 2003 after being fined for parking on the street in front of his rented home. A trial court judge sided with the city, but a panel of the state 3rd District Court of Appeal reversed his finding, ruling that Coral Gables had "unconstitutionally crossed the line" into an "impermissible interference with the personal rights of its residents."

Practically speaking, the ruling mattered little for Kuvin, who moved last year to a waterside condominium in Miami Beach.

But the implications could be big for Coral Gables, whose proud status in South Florida as the "City Beautiful" hinges on the strictly regulated look of its neighborhoods. Pickups - even the Ford F150, the best-selling vehicle in the country last year - are a scourge on the city's image, officials and many residents say.

"It's an unusual law that would have no chance of passing in most cities," said Robert Glazier, a lawyer in private practice who is representing Coral Gables in the case. "We're not saying everyone should ban pickup trucks, but the decision of this city to do so is not irrational."

Glazier said the city would ask the entire appeals court to reverse the panel's decision. At stake, he said, is the right of local governments to impose zoning restrictions based on aesthetic criteria and thus to protect property values.

The ordinance affecting pickup trucks, enacted three decades ago, is actually broader, banning all "trucks, trailers and commercial vehicles" from parking in residential areas at night unless in a garage.

In his lawsuit, Kuvin accused the city of discriminating against an entire class of citizens, those who favor pickup trucks. He rented a house without a garage in Coral Gables, he said, and did not think it fair to have to park his truck outside the city limits every night.

"I have a problem with a city that has a very closed mind and narrow idea about how it should be run," Kuvin, 44, said in an interview. "This is one of the most culturally diverse areas in the entire United States, and yet Coral Gables is telling certain people they can't act out their cultural values."

Judge Alan Schwartz of the 3rd District Court of Appeal, who wrote the majority opinion in the case, appeared to strongly agree.

"Perhaps Coral Gables can require that all its houses be made of ticky-tacky and that they all look just the same," he wrote, "but it cannot mandate that its people are, or do. Our nation and way of life are based on a treasured diversity, but Coral Gables punishes it."

"That is ludicrous and absurd to me," Mayor Don Slesnick said, adding that the five-member city commission voted unanimously last week to keep fighting the case. "This isn't a diversity issue; it's a truck issue."

Property values in Coral Gables have stayed relatively strong in the current real estate slump, Slesnick said, and he attributed that to the city's aesthetic code. During his re-election campaign last year, he said, he polled residents on the truck ban and found that 71 percent supported it.

Kuvin, who just graduated from St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami, said he had heard from plenty of Coral Gables residents who seethe at the zoning rules - so many, he said, that he might make litigation against the city his specialty.

"I think it's an area ripe for a lawyer who's willing to take on cases that seem unwinnable and stand up for Joe Homeowner," he said.