Camping in city parking lots could be monitored more closely this summer after Quesnel City Council approved the first three readings of changes to the City of Quesnel Comprehensive Street, Traffic and Parking Amendment Bylaw.
The bylaw currently allows vehicles to park in city parking lots for up to 12 hours at a time. The change would reduce the amount of time a vehicle could remain in a parking lot from 12 hours to 10 hours, in order to increase Bylaw Enforcement staff’s ability to enforce the bylaw.
The amended bylaw would also state that parking is not allowed between 11 a.m. and 7 a.m. consecutively.
Mayor Simpson commented during discussion at the special City Council meeting on July 17 that the bylaw changes are being proposed in order to deal with complaints received from downtown businesses.
“These are to deal with some of the issues the downtown businesses are complaining about, with individuals deciding to live in the parking lots in large buses or RVs. These are tweaks to enable us to deal with those,” he said.
Proposed changes to the overnight parking bylaw come after a tarp structure erected on private property on Warden Street has caused an increase of disturbances and nuisance behaviour in the West Quesnel neighbourhood.
City Council last night passed a motion to take action to have the structure removed.
RELATED: Tarp structure on Warden Street to be removed
Councillor Elliott asked whether the local Bluegrass Festival, for example, usually requests permits for trailers to camp in parking lots during the annual festival.
“It can be seen as a positive to have people not drinking and driving,” he pointed out.
Director of development services Tanya Turner agreed, and said the Bluegrass Festival organizers do seek approval to have people camp prior to the festival.
“All of the regulations in the existing bylaw state that if you get a permit for anything that’s outlined in the bylaw, you will be allowed to do that above and beyond what’s in the bylaw,” she explained.
Coun. Elliott also wondered if an individual could seek a permit for an overnight stay in a parking lot, and Turner said bylaw staff would be focusing on extraordinary offences to the bylaw.
“We don’t want to chase people away who maybe drink too much at a facility and stay overnight. We wouldn’t be looking at that kind of offence,” she said.
Council will read the changes to the City of Quesnel Comprehensive Street, Traffic and Parking Amendment Bylaw again at a later meeting, and move to approve or deny the changes.
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