City seeks to slash derelict vehicle enforcement times

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This article was published 06/06/2022 (1458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg is eyeing stricter rules for abandoned and derelict vehicles in an effort to keep them from clogging up streets and driveways.

Some of the changes call to slash the timeline required for the city to remove vehicles that may have sat in one street spot for days, weeks or months, depending on when the location was first reported.

Coun. Janice Lukes said the changes for abandoned vehicles would offer “a really good start” in the prevention of claiming scarce parking spots, snarling traffic and impeding snowplows.

“Clearly, our streets are not to be used as parking lots… It prevents traffic flow, it doesn’t allow parking turnover,” said Lukes. “As our city grows and becomes denser and the lots become smaller and there’s less places to park vehicles, we shouldn’t be using the street as a permanent parking lot.”

Once a vehicle is deemed abandoned, the city may ticket and/or tow it.

Under existing rules, a parking enforcement officer can’t move an vehicle deemed abandoned unless it is unregistered, wholly or partially wrecked/dismantled/stripped or appears to have not moved for at least 21 days. If one of those conditions are met, an enforcement officer must also leave a notice on the vehicle for at least 72 hours, warning it could be moved if the owner doesn’t do so.

A new proposal aims to reduce the number of days the city must wait to take action from 21 to 10, and expand the definition of an abandoned vehicle to include “inoperable,” such as when one has flat tires or can’t be legally driven under the Highway Traffic Act.

Owners would be prohibited from parking vehicles that fall into that category on public streets. If they do, enforcement officers could tow the vehicle after leaving a 72-hour notice on the vehicle in question.

Lukes said abandoned vehicles became a much more pressing problem this past winter, when massive dumps of precipitation forced the city to plow repeatedly. Unmoved vehicles slowed down the street clearing process.

“We were trying to (complete) residential plows all the time and the same vehicles just became one with the snowbank,” she said.

The Winnipeg Parking Authority received 820 complaints about abandoned vehicles during the winter of 2021-22, nearly double the five-year seasonal average of 425.

“Abandoned and inoperable vehicles can cause, as (they) did this past winter, significant delays in snow clearing because they’re really just blocking the way for plows and driving up costs… because it’s forcing plows to come back to the same location multiple times… This (change would allow) it to be expedited,” said Lisa Vermette, the authority’s acting manager of regulation and compliance.

Meanwhile, a second proposal calls for the city to tighten up restrictions on how long derelict vehicles can be left in place on any property within Winnipeg.

The city currently defines a derelict vehicle as: one with a body or chassis not in an operating condition and is rusted, wrecked or partly wrecked, dismantled or partly dismantled; not insured and registered under the Highway Traffic Act and does not have a current, valid licence plate attached to it; and entirely or partially located outside of a building for more than one month.

Under current rules, an enforcement officer must inspect a vehicle twice over about 31 days, provide an order with at least three days notice about a violation and provide another 30 days for the owner to address it. As a result, it takes more than two months to complete the enforcement process and allow the vehicle to be ticketed and/or towed.

New rules would eliminate the 30-day waiting period to declare a vehicle derelict, reducing the minimum timeline to about 35 days.

Both sets of changes would require council approval, with the final votes expected June 23.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga