Parking crackdown at Burleigh to limit time to three hours
FREE campers along with the homeless based on the picturesque beachfront at Burleigh are facing eviction as council introduces limited parking hours.
The Bulletin can reveal council has moved quickly to resolve the parking dramas which spread from Goodwin Terrace to Burleigh Esplanade after numerous complaints from angry residents.
Councillor Pauline Young said she and neighbouring councillor Daphne McDonald had worked with officers to get paid parking along the Esplanade to open up spaces for visitors.
“There will be timed parking from 6am to 6pm. It won’t suit everybody. But timed parking along there and having to move on after three hours should move quite a few of those campervans out because they will be fined otherwise,” Cr Young said.
“We’ve had an independent company do a study on who is in the area, and how much of the carparks are used. Some areas, especially on the weekend, are at 120 per cent capacity.
“People are saying ‘how can that be’. They are parking on yellow lines, they are parking across people’s driveways, on the grass and across footpaths. We know that we are over capacity.”
Cr Young said the light rail construction along with more development approvals would put even more demand on carparking in the suburb.
“We have done a full-on independent study into what is happening there so that what we put in place will work — we know it will work because it did in (central) Burleigh and it will address those issues of cars not moving on and campervans being there all the way through (the day),” she said.
“They will have to move their vehicles or there will be penalties.”
Cr Young said three-hour parking had been limited to First Avenue but it would go down the Esplanade on the beach eastern side.
Parking on the western side in front of residents would remain free and unlimited.
Signs for three-hour parking have been put in place by officers but infringements notices would not be issued until February 7 giving time for visitors to adjust to the changes.
About 1200 properties are on the Esplanade and 800 car park spaces. Fifteen vans are currently using the parks.
“Kerbside space is not an individual entitlement, it’s for the whole community. We had planned for this but put it on the backburner due to Covid,” Cr Young said.
In a Bulletin report earlier this week, residents said they were fed-up with campers dumping rubbish.
But some campers believed they had a right to live in their vans and enjoy some of the best ocean views.