Laurelhurst residents say ride-sharing business clogging their streets

SEATTLE — Residents in a Seattle neighborhood want to slam the brakes on a resident’s car-sharing business.

They say he is parking his vehicles all over their neighborhood, taking up precious space.

The resident admits that he parks some of his vehicles there, like this vintage Mustang.

But he says he has vehicles parked all over the city of Seattle and near the airport, and he is trying to get along with his neighbors.

Ross Jordan and his budding business are the talk of the Laurelhurst blog that covers this tiny North Seattle neighborhood.

His neighbors accuse him of parking and leaving the vehicles that he rents through the car sharing website “Turo,” all over the neighborhood — something he denies.

“Like, they said I have 20 cars parked here,” he said. “I have up to six cars parked here. But they’re usually rented. Most of the time, there is one or two or three. Like this is one.”

And like this vintage Mustang parked a couple of blocks away. Jordan says the rest — about 50 vehicles in all — are parked across Seattle, even at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

“I purposely try not to keep too many cars in one place,” said Jordan, “because I don’t want to annoy people.”

Indeed, Bill Nichols says Jordan’s cars have been parked in front of his house.

“I went and talked to him,” said Nichols. “He moved the cars. He was a little annoyed but he removed the cars.”

Parking has long been a contentious issue here, much of it centered on Seattle Children’s Hospital.  But a longtime employee says the hospital’s management strongly discourages anyone from parking around here.

“And also it’s really punitive if you get caught parking out here,” said Monty Neal. “They’re very serious about making sure people don’t park around the neighborhood.”

Jordan says he wants to be a good neighbor, too.

“If someone does have an issue, they’re welcome to contact me,” he said, “and I’ll do my best to fix it.”

The city of Seattle says it has been here numerous times responding to neighbors’ complaints.

But it says Jordan is not breaking any laws.

As for Jordan, his business has become so lucrative in just five years that he has quit his day job at Amazon.

©2022 Cox Media Group