Urban camper roughing it in beat-up RV for at least a month
An RV parked on any street for more than 24 hours is in violation of parking rules
It’s perfect weather for camping — but setting up camp on a street right next to a city park may be pushing it.
Now that summer is here, people are looking to get out of the city and closer to nature.
For many, that adds up to a camping trip, usually in a tent or a tent trailer, or even a recreational vehicle (RV).
But some people prefer the urban environment, which may explain the beat-up RV that has been camped out on a section of Gladstone Ave., just south of Dufferin Grove Park. A reader who asked not to be named emailed to say she can’t figure out how the owner has gotten away with parking it on a city street for at least a month, when it clearly is violating parking restrictions.
The reader said she saw a parking permit in the front window and that when she called parking enforcement, she was told that the permit likely qualified it to be there.
But that didn’t add up, she said, since it has been there for so long without being moved.
“It’s been there for a long time (and is) propped up on jacks,” she said, adding, “the glow from a TV at night would suggest someone is living in it.” We went there and found an RV parked on the east side of Gladstone, at the south border of the park, that looks so rundown and derelict that it shouldn’t be on the road, even though it does have valid license plates.
Two tarps attached to it are hanging on the ground, while a window has been smashed out and filled with cardboard.
Glass from the broken window is strewn across the sidewalk.
The only parking permit we saw — other than a disabled parking pass, which does not allow a vehicle to remain in one spot for weeks or months at a time — was for 2015, and only in a Toronto Parking Authority lot.
Parking signs on the street indicate that no parking is allowed between 12:01a.m. and 7 a.m.
Mike Cull, a parking enforcement shift supervisor in that area, confirmed that vehicles are not allowed to stay in one spot for more than 24 hours, even with a permit. Cull said that he’d send someone to check it out right away and order the owner to move it. What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer or call us at 416-869-4823 email jlakey@thestar.ca. To read our blog, go to thestar.com/news/the_fixer. Report problems and follow us on Twitter @TOStarFixer.