No where to park

[jkerger]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Iowa

I do not know if I have the right legal forum for my question, but think I probably do. We have a dental practice that has utilized a public parking in our commnunity for over 33 years. Do we have grounds for grandfather rights to keep it a public parking. We have maintained the parking area for all of these years, removal of snow and paid to have it repaved. The public parking was along an apartment building and our dental clinic and was used for many years by tenants, patients of the dental clinic and the citizens of the Woodbine community. Within the last two years new owners purchased the apartment building and have made it into a single family dwelling. They told the city that they were going to tare up the parking and turn it into grass since parking was on the city right of way abutting their property. The lot of the apartment building is very small, the new owners have torn out the parking and planted grass far into the city street to make their yard larger, in essence using city property for their personal use. Can we ask for the parking to remain parking as it has been for over 33 years that we have maintianed for all of these years. Also I was reading about comercial parking that a business should have the right to so many parking spaces per square feet of their office building. The parking is on city owned property. The two spaces infront of our office will be designated for handicap/van assessible parking, utilizing all of our available parking. Our street also is a dead end and if the parking changes it will be an unsafe area to exit that part of the street leaving no where to turn around.
Please help, we do not know where to go for guidance, the city if favoring the neighbors whose father just made a large land donation to the city.

Thanks,
Jean

[tranquility]

Since you cannot gain rights to public property (I've driven the freeway to work every week day for decades, is it mine yet?), you don't have a legal issue.

You have a political issue.