A Sunshine Coast councillor hopes a commonsense fix for parking in narrow streets will become legal in this term of council.
Division 6 councillor Christian Dickson believes people should be able to park with two wheels up on the verge outside their own homes.
Motorists currently risk a $120 fine if they park on the verge.
Cr Dickson said allowing drivers to park with two wheels up would be a cheap, easy and effective way of unclogging streets that are difficult to navigate because of parked cars.
He was clear that they should only be allowed to park with two wheels up on the verge in front of their own homes.
“The council doesn’t maintain the footpaths, they do, so that way, if they cause any damage, it’s up to them to fix,” he said.
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Cr Dickson said he had raised the two-wheels-up idea with two previous councils but had been unable to garner enough support to progress it.
However, times had changed and the current crop of councillors appeared more open to the idea.
He said he had been told it could be a topic for discussion at an upcoming parking workshop.
“I raised it with two different councils and I think the majority had been happy with the existing rules,” he said.
“I raised it again in December with the councillors and a lot of them said ‘yes, this is becoming more of an issue’.”
Cr Dickson said parking and crowded street had become more of a problem since the pandemic.
“A lot of people have moved back into the parents’ homes, and I’m seeing a lot of cars parked up on the verge and garages are used as storage or another bedroom,” he said.
“To be fair, the council are not out there booking people for this. If they did, they would be issuing hundreds of tickets every day.”
The two-wheels-up-on-the verge idea could be a solution for streets like Abilene Place, Sippy Downs, where parked cars make it difficult for vehicles to drive along the street.
Luke Dietrich said he sometimes had to park elsewhere and walk to or from his house at the end of the cul-de-sac because there was not enough room to drive down the street between parked cars.
“You can’t see any children when they cross the road and can’t see any oncoming vehicles. The number of people that park there and use the walkway to go straight to the school is at a point where we can’t get out or in our street,” he said.
Mr Dietrich said parking had been a problem during the 18 months he had lived in the street but “just gets worse and worse every few months”.
“The whole area was built without planning. It’s too small and congested it doesn’t ever work,” he said.
He said people had to park somewhere and he was critical of the council taking action against people who did the commonsense thing.
“I got the s—s with how we as ratepayers can’t do things in an orderly fashion without being fined. It’s a joke,” he said.
Cr Dickson said he hoped the parking workshop would take place within this financial year.
