By Tyler Marr

Boulevard parking tickets draw questions from council

Jul 18, 2017 | 12:00 PM

Niki Bouchard was startled to find a $30 ticket on her windshield Saturday claiming she was illegally parked on the boulevard.

She and a number of residents on the 700 and 800 block of 18th Street West, awoke this weekend to find their vehicles ticketed from bylaw officers for parking on a city boulevard. Bouchard, however, would disagree.

“For bylaw to say we are parking on the boulevard, well, there is no boulevard,” she explained. “There is no differentiation. It is a gravel street. There is no sidewalk, no paving, no curbs and no differentiation.”

Bouchard says she is forced to park on the street as her property has no driveway or garage. There are also no street lights, so she attempts to park in the light cast from her house, and close to her fence to protect her new car from being peppered with gravel. 

She said if she parks any further out on the road, it forces her to push her garbage cans out into the street and it can create other safety issues for pedestrians. She has lived at her home for almost a year.

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“I thought, ‘This doesn’t make sense,’” Bouchard said, and called her councillor to explain the situation.

But Sunday, another bylaw officer rolled up and informed her if she did not move her vehicle farther out onto the road, he would have to ticket her again and do so every day thereafter. She said he informed her that people are speeding through the area and by putting the vehicles out on the street, it could help reduce peoples speed.

Coun. Terra Lennox-Zepp received the call and brought the issue before council Monday. 

She presented a motion to rescind all parking tickets issued on the block backdated to July 15 and asked bylaw officers to hold off on issuing tickets for the area so the city could deliver a notice to give residents one month to apply for proper boulevard parking permits. Council voted in favour of the item.

Following Bouchard’s story, questions and comments from almost every councillor in attendance began.

Coun. Evert Botha raised the issue that residents in other wards could be at a similar risk, as there are still many neighbourhoods without adequate sidewalks, boulevards or pavement in the city.

Coun. Ted Zurakowski had more questions about the situation and felt council should hold off before voting on the issue. He said most often, bylaw officers ticket after a complaint and wanted to hear their side of the story.

“Why did bylaw go out there two days in a row? Why were tickets issued? Why were people parking on the boulevard? Have they applied for paving their street?” he asked. “Where is the judgment there, what are we allowing bylaw to do? One case it is okay, one case it is not. To me, we are jumping to what we think we are doing the right thing.”

Despite the back and forth, Bouchard was pleased with the day’s outcome and was going to promptly pickup a boulevard parking pass.

“I am happy that the city works and I am happy with city council and I am happy that they did what they did,” she said. “I couldn’t be [more] pleased.”

paNOW reached out to bylaw but they were unavailiable for comment at this time.

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr