City council rejects bid for 96-hour parking limit

Brandon city council on Monday voted down a push from one councillor to double the allotted time for on-street parking.

Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) proposed extending on-street parking from 48 hours to 96 hours to give residents more flexibility in how long they can remain parked on the road.

Council defeated the motion by 7-3 after a long discussion and a recommendation from city administration not to approve the change.

The result means that the city will keep the 48-hour limit for on-street parking, with some exceptions for certain neighbourhoods that were already in place.

“We knew we’d be fighting an uphill battle there,” Luebke said on Wednesday about administration’s recommendation, adding that he was “disappointed” by council’s vote.

Luebke had asked for a review of the on-street parking bylaw in June 2022, but administration took more than four years to come back to council with its reasoning.

Ryan Nickel, the city’s planning and buildings director, said the 48-hour time limit is in place to ensure that “street parking is for everyone” and that there’s a turnover of vehicles on the street.

He told the Sun on Tuesday that while staff did recommend remaining at 48 hours, the 96-hour option would have been an “acceptable compromise.” A third option was to issue parking permits so residents could park for longer durations with certain requirements, though that option was administration’s least favourite option.

Luebke said the 96 hours would have made more sense, as more people work from home now than they did a decade ago, a lot of seniors live at home and some people just don’t need to go out every day.

“Those are the people I think should have a bit of an exception to this 48 hours,” he said.

He said he would have liked to see a residential parking permit introduced instead, but he proposed the 96 hours as a compromise. The permit would have added more administrative burden than a change in the allotted parking time.

“If I park my vehicle in front of my house and it sits there for four days because I’m using transit or I’m walking or I’m doing other things to get around town, who am I hurting?” he said.

“Why would somebody else need that parking spot in my residential neighbourhood?”

He said he also doesn’t understand how council can spend millions of dollars to make transit more popular, while incentivizing people to get in their cars every other day in order to avoid a ticket.

“It doesn’t make any sense for me, but it is what it is,” he said.

During the meeting, Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7) said he has heard a lot of complaints from residents who live near cul-de-sacs that they are being ticketed, and that those are often seniors.

He said they often aren’t able to move their vehicles regularly, and 96 hours would give them more time.

Coun. Barry Cullen (Ward 3) was the other councillor to support Luebke’s motion.

In opposition, Coun. Greg Hildebrand (Ward 5) said the 48-hour limit does not actually represent two days’ worth of time, as the tickets are only applied after more time has passed. A 96-hour limit would work the same way, and people would be able to park in the same spot on the street for well over that limit, he said.

“What we’re doing is we’re promoting on-street parking lots,” Hildebrand said.

Luebke disputed the point and said he is aware of tickets being issued after about 49 hours.

Coun. Tyson Tame (Ward 10) agreed with Hildebrand and said with more multi-family units in the city, a turnover in parking needs to be in place.

“The 48 hours even without any type of chalking is often leaking into 96 hours anyway,” Tame said.

A council report said bylaw enforcement officers issued 142 tickets for overstaying 48-hour parking last year, while 256 tickets were issued in 2024, accounting for about two to three per cent of all tickets. Tickets are mainly complaint-driven.

The city also conducted a study of street parking rules in other municipalities. Ninety-two per cent of the 105 communities reviewed across five provinces have up to 72-hour time limits, the report said. In Manitoba, Dauphin allows 48 hours, Portage la Prairie allows 72 hours, Selkirk only 24 hours and Winnipeg allows up to 10 days. Other communities, like Steinbach and Morden, don’t have any regulations.

While councillors on Monday were told that the tickets were nearly completely driven by complaints, a Brandon Police Service spokesperson said bylaw officers do watch for signs such as snow or dust on a vehicle as clues for how long it has been parked.

“Protocol is to chalk tires, then after 48 hours they can be issued a ticket. If the vehicle still doesn’t move, then a notice is given a few days later to the registered owner — and at that time they have 48 hours to move (the) vehicle, or it will be towed,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Outgoing Ward 2 Coun. Kris Desjarlais wasn’t at Monday’s meeting, one of several he has missed this year.

» alambert@brandonsun.com