Maintaining Quality of Life in Our Neighbourhoods: Should the City Limit Number of Vehicles Attached to a Residence? (Dallas: fit in, apartment complex)
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I would like to know what other people think? Should the city of Fort Worth (or other cities) restrict the number of motor vehicles attached to one residence? I refer specifically to houses as most apartment complexes will limit all units to no more than 2 vehicles per apartment so that no tenants take up more than a fair share of parking space.
This question is related to another thread I posted about problem neighbours who regularly keep 6+ vehicles attached to a 2/1 duplex. I have complained to police who advised me that so long as the vehicles are parked in the right direction for the side of the street, they can do nothing. I also complained to Code about it who advised me there is no ordinance limiting the number of vehicles that can be attached to one residence.
I see this problem proliferating. I am affected by it on my street, and just one street over, I see it at another residence, a single family home that keeps 4 vehicles in the drive, at least 2 vehicles parked on the street in front, and up to 3 more vehicles parked across the street in a private parking lot owned by some sort of business or agency that has the lot posted no public parking but apparently ignores the problem since they have few vehicles they need to park there on a regular basis.
I feel this affects other neighbours's rights to the peaceful enjoyment of their own properties, and it lowers the whole tone of the neighbourhood. I can get no answer as to why the city has not addressed this issue, though. Anyone have any idea why this is tolerated by city government?
Short of the city issuing parking permits, that's going to be practically impossible to enforce.
Instead of cars, focus on occupancy limits. Under standard housing codes, occupants are limited to 2 people per bedroom, and a bedroom is defined as a room with a window and a closet. So if a 2 bedroom house has 6 cars, unless 2 of those are show/collector cars, then it's pretty safe to say they are exceeding the occupancy limit on the house. Good luck getting Code Enforcement to care about it, though. You might have more luck with the Fire Marshall.
Short of the city issuing parking permits, that's going to be practically impossible to enforce.
Instead of cars, focus on occupancy limits. Under standard housing codes, occupants are limited to 2 people per bedroom, and a bedroom is defined as a room with a window and a closet. So if a 2 bedroom house has 6 cars, unless 2 of those are show/collector cars, then it's pretty safe to say they are exceeding the occupancy limit on the house. Good luck getting Code Enforcement to care about it, though. You might have more luck with the Fire Marshall.
Hi ChristieP. Yes, I have contacted Code Compliance. I belled my area code officer the last two weeks, but he never belled me back, so today I belled the city. The woman with whom I spoke said there were no ordinances limiting the number of vehicles attached to a residence, insofar as she knew, so theoretically, one residence could have enough vehicles to line both sides of the block with no repercussions, which I find utterly ridiculous. As I told this lady, an apartment complex typically restricts the number of vehicles to an apartment to no more than 2. It is not fair to everyone else that a few tenants should monopolise all of the available parking space. Landlords should be enforcing the same sort of limit with regard to single family homes and duplexes. Anyway, as you say, I do not expect Code is going to be of much help. Thank you for mentioning the Fire Marshall, though. I will certainly look into that once Code contact me back with its conclusion.
They are parked in front of my house again today all day. The 4RUNNER that has been out there for weeks and weeks now was there last night whence I went to bed and still there this morning and still there this evening. The F-350 pick up truck has not moved at all for several weeks. I have begun to wonder if they are storing it here for someone, or if it is stolen, or what else? I contacted police about it today. They said if it has not been moved for weeks, they can put a sticker on it. Has not happened yet, but I am waiting to see if they follow through.
I asked both our NPO and the lady at the city today if either police or code could provide me with the names of the official tenants. They said no. Well, I figure if I file a nuisance suit against the owner, I can subpoena the code officer to testify. Surely if he is in court, he will have to identify to whom he spoke. Likewise, the owner will have to testify to whom she leased the property. If suing her does not get this resolved, I will sue the tenants. I am serious as a heart attack. I am sick of this. These people have far too many vehicles outside for a 2/1 unit, but so long as they stayed away from my house, I would ignore them. I have to ask why will they not park across the street? I told the woman driving the 4RUNNER that there was no one parking on the opposite side of the street from their house, and I asked her to consider parking there instead of in front of my house. After all, it is closer, and she can see her vehicle from the house if she parked there. Why insist on parking in front of my house? Even if some of their vehicles are gone, the rest will continue to park in front of my house and leave the spaces in front of their house open. Now, how do you explain that??
If everything fails with authorities and the court, then I am going to take the advice of someone else and start parking my vehicle in front of their house. Maybe whence the main tenant there can no longer park in front of their house, they will get the point and stay away from my house.
I contacted police about it today. They said if it has not been moved for weeks, they can put a sticker on it. Has not happened yet, but I am waiting to see if they follow through.
Had a similar issue with a new neighbor that parked there car across the street and left it there. After about a month the orange sticker appeared. The next morning the sticker was gone and the car continued to sit there for 4-5 months before another sticker was put on it. This time the car disappeared after a couple of days.
Had a similar issue with a new neighbor that parked there car across the street and left it there. After about a month the orange sticker appeared. The next morning the sticker was gone and the car continued to sit there for 4-5 months before another sticker was put on it. This time the car disappeared after a couple of days.
It took a month for police to sticker the vehicles after they found out about them? That is demoralising. You cannot be sure why they were there in the first place. Stolen? The street used as storage? Criminals hiding out in a neighbourhood where no one knows them? Whatever the reason, it has to be shady. A truck suddenly appeared on my street a couple of weeks ago. No license plate; no tags. It was in pretty bad condition. I belled police to report it, and I was told, believe it or not, that it was not against the law to have a vehicle parked on the street with no tags or plates. I then reported it to my NPO. He checked it out, and whence it was still there two days later, he placed a sticker on it. Next day it was gone.
The one F-350 truck on my street that belongs to those neighbours has been there a very long time. It has plates and tags, though. I first saw them with it back in April. I saw they used it a couple of times in May, and then I do not recall it ever moving again. I reported it to the NPO and the police patrol number. As of this morning, it is still there, and there is no sticker on it. Since they are not using the truck, I can only conclude that they are either storing it for themselves or for someone else. I have seen this happen at one of the apartment complexes where I leased an apartment some years back. I counted 16 cars in one day in the car park that had expired tags. Some had flat tires from sitting so long. I once saw the maintenance man bring in an horribly dilapidated vehicle with a friend. It apparently belonged to the friend, and the maintenance man was helping him to keep it on the property. It sat there for so long that all of the tires went flat, but the manager was very selective as to which vehicles received a sticker.
This is why I argue that at bottom, the landlords hold the greatest responsibility for the problems. Good landlords do not allow tenants to get away with these things. Bad landlords only care about collecting the rent. They do not care about the good people in the neighbourhood at all. The landlords usually live in much nicer homes in much more upscale neighbourhoods. How did they afford their homes? By buying rental property and milking the tenants and the neighbourhoods dry before either selling or abandoning the properties down the line. Very often, the landlords are not even local. They often live out of state.
Last night I screened some YouTube videos on urban blight in various cities, e.g. Detroit. City officials talked about how owners abandoned properties that quickly decomposed. They would not even pay to tear them down. They ignored numerous fines, and eventually, the city (read the tax payers) pick up the tab of $10K or more to knock down privately owned abandoned buildings. I think that should be made a felony with mandatory jail time. Ultimately, the problems are almost always traced back to bad landlords. They know from the start what quality tenant they are installing, but even if they do not know, once they receive complaints, they do nothing about it---so long as the rent is paid.
Now, do not get me wrong. There are some good landlords. My landlord is a great landlord. The problem is there seem to be more bad ones than good ones. As for police and code officers, they will make some effort if the complaining wheel is squeaky enough, but ultimately, their hands are tied by what the city has or has not done. Local government is usually the worst level of government no matter where you go. I will refrain from launching into a litany of problems with local government, but I will say local governements bear a lot of the responsibility for these sorts of problems. In general, local government is a joke. This is why really important decisions such as defence are never left in their hands. I will add that I believe most people who go into politics do it for self-aggrandisement. People we all know who would make great legislators and politicians never or rarely choose those careers because of how dirty they are. Cannot say I blame them. I would not run for office myself. I would throw my support behind a good candidate, but where are they? Once they are elected, the ones you thought were going to get things in order never follow through. This is why there is so much voter apathy year after year.
I emailed my city counsel representative yesterday. I am sure one of her aids will contact me back, but I know it will go no where. I have not contacted the mayor's office in years about this sort of thing because whence I contacted them in the 1990s and brought in four rolls worth of photos with me to their office, they still did nothing.
Last edited by the_little_truth_writer; 08-21-2018 at 11:27 AM..
Suburban cities actually care about issues like these. I can call Code Enforcement in Grapevine and they will come out the same day.
Big cities like Fort Worth and Dallas have much bigger issues to deal with, such as murders/rapes, shortages of police officers, and underfunded city pensions. Someone having too many cars, or a duplex that is over the occupancy limit, isn't even on their radar.
Bottom line, you have two choices: quit worrying about it, or move away. You aren't going to change the neighbors' behavior, and you aren't going to get the city to be concerned with it.
You are lucky if your city's authorities respond so quickly, ChristieP. I disagree with the choices. I am not moving. I have a wonderful home with a great landlord, and I am within 5 miles of everything around which my life revolves. As for not worry about it, that is what these sorts of people count on. They are facing a different situation with me. I am not going to back down from protecting my home and my community.
You are lucky if your city's authorities respond so quickly, ChristieP. I disagree with the choices. I am not moving. I have a wonderful home with a great landlord, and I am within 5 miles of everything around which my life revolves. As for not worry about it, that is what these sorts of people count on. They are facing a different situation with me. I am not going to back down from protecting my home and my community.
You're not going to back down from allowing people to legally park on a public street?
Good luck with that.
Have you ever considered other households may not fit into your same mold of the world? Some families have that many cars because of the size of the family. If it is legal to park on the public street, what do you think you're going to do about it?
It sounds like you're a renter. No laws are being broken, you just don't like it. Either move, wait for them to hopefully move, or stop complaining. Writing volumes of text on citydata isn't going to change a thing, nor do you have any legal power to change anything.
Does it suck, YES ... but is it really the end of the world? Enjoy your home and stop worrying about what others are doing. If it affects your life so much that you're no longer happy, move.
NO!!! - That said it pays to park in front of your own house sometimes
I used to park in front of the house. I preferred it. Then, about three or four years ago, during the night one night, someone who was either drunk out of his mind or high as a kite slammed right into my parked motor. He hit it right at the driver's side front wheel. He hit is so hard that it actually knocked the ball joint out of the wheel and bent the axle. No kidding. He left part of his vehicle in the street. I never heard a thing as my bedroom is far back from the street. Cost to repair was almost $2K. I never even got an estimate on the body work. Body work for what he did has to be at least $15K. The motor is too old to warrant putting that much money into it. I think the frame was bent, too. Hood no longer opens and closes flush. Passenger side door no long opens and closes flush. I hope to replace the vehicle soon.
I later heard that the exact same thing happened to the woman's motor who lived in the house where these people live now. It happened before I moved here. So, whoever is responsible must live or travel through this area as this has happened twice now that I am aware. I picked up the abandoned pieces of the driver's vehicle and saved them. I searched the neighbourhood looking for a damaged vehicle that matched the pieces I found, but I never found it. Either they garaged the damaged vehicle or moved it out of the neighbourhood. I asked police what would happen if I were ever able to identify the miscreant. I was told he would get a ticket. A ticket for doing several thousand dollars damage to my motor and basically ruining it thanks to the bent frame? He had to be incredibly drunk or high, and all they would do is issue a measly ticket? He could have killed me had I been inside of the motor or entering or exiting it. I thought, sod that! If I ever find out who did it, I will repay him myself. Anyway, I stopped parking in front of the house after that. Still, I do not want them parked in front of my house 24/7. If I need to park there, I want to be able to do so. If I have guests or a tradesman comes, I want them to have easy access.
To have that many vehicles attached to a 2.1 half duplex is ridiculous! You know that residence is meant for two people, or maybe two people and a child, not that many adults. It is simply greedy to expect a 2.1 half duplex to take up more than half the block's worth of parking. No one else on this block does this. They are greedy, thoughtless, selfish b*st*rd, low-lifes. I found more trash on my lawn and in front of my house again the other day. I know it comes from them. I hope whoever hit my motor a few years ago hits theirs even harder.
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