Surrey council has put its final stamp of approval on a pilot on-street truck parking program that will allow permit holders to park their trucks at all hours in certain industrial areas of Port Kells, South Westminster and Cloverdale.
READ ALSO: Surrey council approves on-street truck parking program
Surrey council had passed third reading on three bylaws on July 13 and also set a public hearing for July 27 related to the pilot program.
The public hearing concerned the amendment of a bylaw governing off-street parking and loading/unloading so that truck parking facilities won’t be required to be paved except when maintenance is concerned. Council granted third reading and final adoption following the public hearing, as well as final approval to those bylaws that won third reading on July 13.
Deb Jack, president of Surrey Environmental Partners told council her group is concerned that the places where trucks will be parked will not be paved.
“Our concern is that there’s a lot of stuff that drops out of vehicles,” she said.
Resident Annie Kaps reminded council that last November it made it illegal to live in, or even sleep in, an RV on Surrey’s streets.
“Surrey did move against RV vehicles and sleeping on the streets, and now I’ve looked at this thing and I don’t see any proviso that you cannot sleep in the cab of these trucks,” she said. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and I don’t think that this should be allowed in these rigs either.”
“If a person who has a motorhome cannot park it on the street and stay in there, even if it’s for a couple of days when they’re trying to unload it,” she said, “I oppose this for that reason.”
“I just think there should be something to acknowledge the fact that these rigs have sleepers in them, and RV vehicles have sleepers, and this is not covered in this bylaw.”
READ ALSO: Surrey councillor says decision to ban sleeping in RVs on streets ‘mean-spirited’
Jean Lamontagne, Surrey’s general manager of planning an development, told council that truck maintenance must be done on a paved area. “As it relates to the remainder of the property, it’s up to the owner of the property to ensure that the trucks that might be parked on the property are not doing activities that they should be doing on the paved area, on the non-paved area.”
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