I'm not a big defender of, say, Airbnb running gypsy hotels in secret defiance of leasing and HOA agreements, but people have a lot of funny ideas about ownership of things that aren't theirs to own.
I saw near fistfights over people parking in front of other peoples houses. Or a particularly memorable argument in which people shouted out of their kitchen window at a group of kids who were doing nothing but sitting on a deck talking at 8:00 PM. My HOA sued the town I lived in because someone wanted to build an apartment building about 1/4 mile from the front entrance of the subdivision (don't want "those" people living nearby after all).
The HOA also was part of a larger group opposing the extension of a light rail line that would connect our town to the larger metroplex. The same argument was used in that case, "those people" would be able to come up and cause crime in our neighborhood.
I'm not surprised that the people in the article believe that they have a right to a quiet street.
The homeowner however doesn't care that its only 15 minutes of your time, since for him/her its probably all day :-/
People get real, real, real hot about their houses. And their parking. And people driving by their house, or walking past their house on the sidewalk. Or what gets built across the street from their house... et cetera.
Yes, in the scheme of things, this is SUPER minor. No, I've never complained to anyone about it. But I do think it's a little bit disingenuous to just say "it's a public street, anyone can park there" without acknowledging that if there were no negative, they'd be parking in front of their own house instead of mine.
What's strange here is the guy is parking in front of someone else's house rather than his own. Never heard of that. I would think most people feel a false sense of possession over the street in front of their house, in part so they can park their own cars there and keep an eye on them.
Never, ever, ever buy a house without off-street parking. I don't even care if you don't have a car. Just don't. I would hate to live that man's life.
I will say that I have seen the kind of people bitching about this Waze thing, and... sigh. The suburbs, man. People are funny.
Laws like this becomes really interesting when you build neighborhoods in certain ways.
In my neighborhood, the houses were built very far forward on the lots and thus very close to the sidewalks. Looking out my front window right now, I'd estimate it's less than 10 feet away. This has the effect of making it impossible to park in your driveway without blocking the sidewalk unless you have a very small car - like a Smart car or something.
Add to this that the HOA has a rule against long-term overnight parking on the street (which they define as more than five consecutive days). Which means that you either have to put every car in a garage, or break some law or rule.
Fortunately, most of these rules are unenforced. To my knowledge the HOA has only ever asked one person to move a vehicle off the road, and that one was parked there for months, obviously disabled and becoming an eyesore. Every now and then when I'm working in the garage I need to leave my truck parked out overnight. I always feel bad blocking the sidewalk, but then I look around and see probably half the neighborhood doing it too.