Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Parking By-Law enforcement

Submitted by Cynthia Kalhok

I wanted to let our community know about an incident that took place on Friday, October 16th. My friend arrived at my home at 9:30AM so we could car pool to an event. I live at Higgins and Redenda. She parked in front of my home, along a hedge and not in front of anyone's driveway. I drove to the event. When we returned, she had a $40 parking ticket on her car, timed at 1:20PM. My friend has parked in front of my house for an extended period exactly one time.

Upon further investigation, we learned there is a bylaw in the City of Ottawa that no car can park more than 3 hours on any city street. We also learned that a bylaw officer will not come to a neighbourhood like Briargreen unless a resident makes a complaint. When a complaint is made, bylaw may come in the next few days or in the weeks to come. If called to an area like ours, they will check all the streets in the area as a cash grab and often return a few more times within a small time window to increase the chances of ticketing the person about whom the complaint was made. My friend was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Please know that if you call bylaw regarding a parking problem, it will impact other innocent people who would never expect to get a ticket on our neighbourhood streets. Perhaps a note on the offending car would be more effective.