Beach parking crackdown hits homeowners
Wainfleet town staff will sit down with residents of Maplewood Drive, Woodland Drive and Lakeshore Road West to try to soothe concerns about how parking tickets are being handed out to residents.
The pledge by township chief administrative officer William Kolasa comes after Maplewood resident Bob Liddycoat told township council last week that parking ticket practices on those streets have become heavy-handed to the point where cars parked in driveways are getting tickets because bylaw staff say the vehicles are sticking out too far.
“The restrictions to parking on my street have caused many of my neighbours … to be upset,” Liddycoat said. “Now we’re getting tickets on our property, sometimes nowhere near the road.”
Liddycoat said it’s fallout from steps the township took some time ago to add parking spaces and washrooms to the Reebs Beach area, which resulted in more visitors from outside the neighbourhood hitting the beach.
“Then they had people parking all over the place,” Liddycoat told Metroland.
That forced the township to put no-parking signs on the local roads, but it’s caused hardship to local residents having to pay parking tickets, he said.
“They put no parking everywhere, (and) now we can’t park,” said Liddycoat. “They’re on the homeowners like crazy. That was not the intent.
“This was brought about as a knee-jerk reaction to the opening of that beach.”
He told council that the township says it’s about safety, but insisted local residents weren’t consulted and wonder if they’re somehow being targeted.
“(There’s) lots of rumours out there, lots of hearsay,” said Liddycoat. “It’s all an indication of no communication.
“We’ve had guests who have been ticketed and they are in the driveway,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. Where are we supposed to park? On our front lawns?”
Ald. Richard Dykstra asked Liddycoat if he had spoken with bylaw staff. Liddycoat said he hadn’t but said residents think it feels like harassment.
“Believe me, a lot of people are using that word,” he said, noting bylaw enforcement staff even knock on residents’ doors telling them to move their cars onto their property.
Bylaw and property standards officer Mark Tardif conceded “this is definitely an issue” that had its roots before he started with the township. He said some people are parking on the municipal road allowances and some people have extended their driveways to encroach on the municipal road allowance, which is a no parking zone under a bylaw.
As for bylaw staff knocking on doors, that’s a courtesy, Tardif said.
“The reason our officer knocks on the door is so he doesn’t have to give a ticket, just to inform people that this is a violation of the bylaw, and he asks them to move the vehicle,” he said. “That’s a courtesy I’ve asked him to do: if you can get someone to move their car, move their car.
“I do understand there is parking issues there,” said Tardif, who noted the point could come where residents could get residential parking permits. But for now that can’t happen because the roads need to be widened first, he said.
Tardif said the no-parking signs have been up for two years and until now no one questioned it.
Dykstra asked how the township can get a workable solution for both the township and residents.
Kolasa said an evening could be scheduled so he, and staff from the bylaw and operations departments, could down so staff could talk about the history of the parking issues, the current enforcement approach and how the township can move forward.
After that, staff could come back to council with a report, he said.