An Edmonton woman is frustrated after a stranger parked on her private parking pad and she had a hard time getting the vehicle removed.
Georgina Kuzyk has lived in her Strathcona home for 31 years. During that time, she’s had problems with people temporarily parking in her driveway – but nothing quite like this.
“Thursday at 8:30 p.m. I came home from a function I was at and there was a vehicle parked here,” she said, standing beside her garage.
Kuzyk has two parking pads behind her house, in addition to the driveway for her garage. They’re clearly private property, off the alley behind her house.
About 24 hours later, the blue SUV still had not moved. Kuzyk said she called the police non-emergency line and was re-directed by 311 for city bylaw.
“I left them a notice saying I would like them to come out and ticket my car,” she said.
A bylaw officer came out, but didn’t provide the resolution Kuyzk was hoping for.
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Kuzyk asked the bylaw officer what she should do and said she was told to take the owner of the vehicle to court.
She felt that was absurd — especially because she didn’t know who had parked in her spot.
“Anger. Anger because this is how a private citizen is being treated, a taxpayer,” she said.
“Commonsense has to prevail, and we seem to be lacking that.”
Instead, she called police again. This time they looked up the plate, found the registered owner and told them about the problem. Forty-five minutes later, the vehicle was removed from Kuzyk’s property.
“Under our bylaw, we will regulate on private property, but only if there is proper signage,” the city said in a statement to Global News.
Kuzyk said she wants the city to change the bylaw to better protect homeowners, without requiring everyone to purchase and display a very specific, ‘No Parking’ sign.
On Tuesday, Mayor Don Iveson called the ordeal a head-scratcher.
“Maybe there’s an interpretation issue we can solve easily here,” he said. “They shouldn’t have had to go through that mess and it shouldn’t have required that much police and bylaw time, and all of your attention to it to get this citizen’s issue dealt with.”
The area’s councillor, Ben Henderson, said he’d heard of similar problems from residents before.
Watch below: (From Aug. 27, 2019) What would you do if a stranger randomly parked in your driveway and blocked you into your garage? As Sarah Ryan reports, it’s a problem that is getting attention at Edmonton City Hall.
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