Push to clamp illegal parkers

RESIDENTS in flats and other strata buildings are demanding the State Government reintroduce clamping and towing of illegally parked cars to stop protracted legal and sometimes physical disputes they say are turning apartment car parks into battle grounds.

Parking is the "biggest headache in strata living", the chairman of the Owners Corporation Network and strata lawyer, Stephen Goddard, wrote in a letter to the Minister for Fair Trading, Virginia Judge, this month, seeking to lift a ban on car clamping introduced a decade ago.

Under NSW law, building managers and owners cannot touch illegally parked cars and, if the car owner does not live in the building, there is no way to warn or fine them.

Complaints include commuters parking illegally in strata developments near railway stations; two and three-car families parking vehicles permanently in visitor spaces; abandoned cars left in car spaces when owners move on; and weekend revellers taking residents' parking spots in inner-city buildings.

A member of the executive committee of the Riviera development on the lower North Shore, Hillary Lloyd, said illegally parked cars had even blocked access for fire engines and garbage trucks.

Mr Goddard wrote that the strata laws should be amended "to enable proprietors in general meeting to pass a by-law which enables clamping or towing away of vehicles failing to comply".

At the prestigious Horizon block in Darlinghurst, rogue parking has become such a problem residents have to book spaces for visitors in advance.

The building manager has had to seek court orders to have abandoned cars towed on to the street for the City of Sydney Council to deal with.

At the Gazebo in Kings Cross, weekend revellers queue up at the building's underground car park gate then tailgate residents in and take any space.

"We have heard everything from legitimate owners' cars being vandalised when they dared to park in their own spaces to the rogue parkers' car locks being superglued." Mr Goddard said.

A spokesman for Ms Judge said: "The minister has received the Owners Corporation Network letter and we are aware of the considerable response to [the issue raised in] the Flatchat column [in the Herald's Domain section]. The minister will be taking advice on this and will then discuss it with the Local Government Minister to see what can be done."