The Wilton Select Board has approved a new parking ordinance, and is finalizing another that would prevent through-trucking on Gregg Street.
On Monday, the board held a public hearing on both ordinances, finalizing one and making changes to the other, based on public comment.
The board, after hearing no public objection, added rules about parking at the Garwin Falls trailhead on Isaac Frye Highway. The area has been a trouble spot for roadside parking in the past, and the town already has a prohibited parking zone on both sides of Isaac Frye Highway from Sand Hill Road to 910 Isaac Frye Highway.
The added language would state that authorized parking for the Garwin Falls trailhead “shall be limited to the spaces directly in front of the gated trailhead on Isaac Frye Highway. Vehicles shall be parked between the authorized parking signs, within the cleared portion of the shoulder, entirely off the paved roadway.”
The board unanimously approved the addition.
The other ordinance the board considered was for through-trucking of commercial vehicles, which is currently prohibited on Main Street. On Monday, the board discussed adding Gregg Street to those prohibitions.
Select Board Chair Kermit Williams clarified that the ordinance is specific to vehicles passing through, and the ordinance allows for commercial trucks that are making deliveries, belong to businesses located on those streets and are being used in the normal course of business, repair and snow removal for homes or businesses, school buses, emergency vehicles and town vehicles.
Williams said that there have been issues with trucks trying to avoid Main Street and their GPS sending them down Gregg Street, which has caused vehicles to get stuck and collide with stone walls.
Interim Police Chief John Frechette said that last week, a tractor-trailer got stuck trying to make the turn from Forrest Road onto Gregg Street.
“Seems it happens about every 10 days,” Frechette said.
Bill Keefe, an officer of Souhegan Wood Products, spoke on behalf of the company, asking for the ordinance to be amended to make explicit that off-roads from Gregg and Main, some of which have no other entrance, be included in the exemptions to normal business traffic, specifically Souhegan and Howard Street, which dead-end off Main Street.
The board agreed that was reasonable and fit the intent of the ordinance, and added “and environs” to the exemptions for both Main Street and Gregg Street. The board did not sign the amended ordinance during Monday’s meeting, but intend to review and sign the finalized version with the added clause during its next Select Board meeting.