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Bloor West Village resident Jennifer Hargreaves understands why digging up your front yard for a parking pad is a controversial issue in Toronto. Any new paved surface hinders the city’s ability to absorb storm water. However nicely a parking spot is landscaped, it is no match aesthetically for a lawn.

“If everyone has parking pads there’s no front yards,” says Hargreaves, a mother of two who works at home. “So I understand from an environmental perspective, and from a curb appeal/community feel perspective as well.”

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But the daytime parking situation in her neighbourhood is murder, she says. “I’ve got to carry two infants, and groceries (a long way) to get to my house.”

So more than a year ago, Hargreaves and her husband spent $393 applying for a front-yard parking pad. The city turned them down, citing a vulnerable tree. They then spent $822 more to appeal the decision to Etobicoke York Community Council, and an additional $500 for the opinion of an independent arborist. And on Tuesday, subject to myriad tree-friendly conditions, that council granted its application.