ASK PAT: Parking Bylaws

Susan asks—

According to New West’s by-law for the parking of vehicles 4.9.1 – any New West resident can park their vehicle(s) on any residential street (except areas requiring permits, or metered parking) for as long as they wish as long as their vehicle has valid insurance.
In Burnaby & Vancouver, the by-law is more specific and requires that any vehicle cannot park for more than 3 hours in front of a residence unless the residence is the actual property of the parker.
If another New West resident decides to leave their vehicle parked in front of another residence and does not move it for week/months, there is nothing Parking Enforcement can do.
What is the process in requesting a change to this bylaw?

You basically have it right. Our Street and Traffic Bylaw makes it illegal to park a car for more than 72 hours where there are no other parking restrictions, unless you are a resident of the City. As long as your vehicle is not derelict, is insured, and is not a commercial vehicle heavier than 5,500kg, the road is yours to store your vehicle for free as long as you can find a spot.

I have vague memories of the last time we upgraded the Streets and Traffic Bylaw, and at the time staff recommended that the 72-hour restriction be applied to everyone. Checking my notes, it was in the March 23, 2015 Committee of the Whole meeting where some members of Council argued that this was unfair, and that residents should be able to park for free for as long as they want. I disagreed at the time, and continue to disagree.

That said, I doubly disagree with the Burnaby approach, where the public land in front of your house somehow belongs to the resident of the house that happens to be in front of it. That land does not belong to you, it belongs to the public. Putting up barriers, cones, milk crates, or buckets to protect it as a personal parking space like this is similarly against the law.

Here is an unpopular opinion: there is no shortage of parking in New Westminster. There are local shortages of the free or very low-cost public parking that people prefer, but every house in New Westminster has a garage or parking pad (regardless of whether they are actually used for car storage) and every new multi-family building is built with more parking than the residents use. And outside of a few special events and around churches on Sunday Morning, there is generally no lack of street parking. When it comes to resident parking and nw buildings, we are simply building too much.

There was even a recent Metro Vancouver study on parking availability whose highlight point was that across the region “Apartment parking supply remains excessive relative to observed utilization”. Here are the first two key findings:

As mentioned in an opinion in The Record a few weeks ago, there is a real cost to this. Underground parking is expensive to build ($50,000+ per spot) and an alleged lack of parking is a common reason residents oppose new housing in their neighbourhoods, making housing more expensive for all. But I now I realize I’m drifting pretty far from the nature of your question…

The process to change the Bylaw would be to ask Council to do it. Ask Pats, as fun as they are, do not represent official correspondence with Mayor and Council, so you could write a letter to Council (here are the links about how you do that). Try to keep it relatively short and respectful, and explain the rationale for why you think the Bylaw should change. Any member of Council could take the concern to Council and ask staff to follow up, though there is no guarantee. Alternately, you can come to Council yourself and make your case as a Public Delegation at most Council Meetings, and again, Council may or may not act, but it can’t hurt to ask.

5 comments on “ASK PAT: Parking Bylaws

  1. The laws in New Westminster are nonsensical. I have someone regularly parking in front of my house in an EVO car which blocks me from parking my vehicle there when I want to put my garbage, recycling or organic garbage containers out. So essentially the New Westminster Mayor and Council want you to put out the bins but won’t do anything about vehicles that stop us from doing that. No wonder I didn’t vote for any of you in the last election!

    1. You don’t own the street in front of your house and people have the right to park there. Does not matter if it is an EVO. EVOs are legal vehicles and they can park there if they want. Most likely the EVO is driven by your neighbour that does not own their own vehicle.

  2. City property paid by everyone’s taxes equally! If you want that space of the road with your set of rules, then show a receipt that you paid for that spot.

  3. i know of a neighbour that owns 4-6 vehicles and refuses to park in his own drive in spots in front of his building instead opting to take up a good portion of the street spacing said vehicles far enough apart to monopolize but not far enough apart for another vehicle to get between making it impossible for visitors, delivery or elderly residents wanting to park in front of their own homes, sometimes leaving these monstrous vehicles for weeks at a time. i don’t know what he actually keeps in his garageS, maybe MORE vehicles.
    legal but frustrating

Leave a Reply to Typ Cancel reply