Kerre McIvor: Parking wars offer petty relief from coronavirus chat

Councils are tightening up parking availability in the city and in the suburbs. Photo / 123f

COMMENT

This week I managed to have one morning of Covid-free chat on NewsTalk ZB. It was bliss. We flirted dangerously close to the c-word when we were discussing the Green's proposal to double the amount of sick leave workers are entitled to, from five days to 10. However, all but one of the callers managed to negotiate the discussion without blurting out the c-word.

It was such a relief, talking topics other than Covid. So I thought I'd do the same for this column. To be fair, there's not a lot of other news around. There was the select committee's decision to not proceed with a ban on the sale of fireworks, which brought joy to the lives of the boys who love big bangs. There's the implosion of the Tauranga City Council, which makes for gruesome but fascinating viewing.

And then there was this: a note, in beautiful cursive writing, left on the window of a Hamilton man's car. The author of the note was disgruntled that the man had parked outside her house. "Please do not park your vehicle outside OUR house," it read. "Our" was underlined twice for emphasis. "We are a small quiet street with very limited parking in each of our properties. When we have visitors call in sometimes, it would be nice if they could park outside our own property as I feel it is disrespectful to park in front of our neighbours' own houses. Perhaps you could work out a plan in front of where you live or not directly in front of other people's houses. Many thanks."

For the record, the offending parker lived in the street, however, roadworks prevented him from parking outside his own home. When I read the story, I couldn't believe how petty it was. Surely you couldn't possibly expect to lay claim to the road outside your house? Was not parking in front of other people's homes a thing?

I thought I was a good neighbour. I know you don't park over driveways. I know you give your neighbours a heads-up if you're going to be having a bit of a shindig on a Saturday evening. I know you don't start the mower or the leaf blower before nine or after six (if I had my way, leaf blowers would be banned outright, but there you go. We all have to make allowances and rub along together.)

But not parking on the road in front of your neighbour's house? Who knew? As it turned out, quite a lot of people, actually. It really annoys them. Especially the woman who has a neighbour with two big vehicles, a boat and a trailer and no off-street parking. It annoys one elderly couple so much that every morning at seven, they back their car out of the garage, park it in front of their home for the day, then drive the car back into the garage at night. Their visitors may not be able to park right outside, but by crikey, nobody else will be able to either.

I get that if you're struggling with kids and car seats and bags and groceries, parking right outside the house would be a godsend. And maybe because I lived in a house for 22 years that had three off-street car parks, I never felt territorial about the stretch of asphalt outside the house.

But things are only going to get worse as councils around the country have decided two wheels good, four wheels bad - unless the four wheels are attached to a bus. People are being actively discouraged from driving cars and one way to do that is to tighten up parking availability, both in the city and in the suburbs. Roads are being narrowed and intensive housing is springing up. And the hope is that people will decide it's too much hassle to own a car and turn to cycling and public transport instead.

A decent public transport infrastructure has yet to be built around most of our cities so expect plenty more parking wars to pop up in the future. It seems such a silly thing for people to get so exercised about – and in these trying times, with so much uncertainty, surely it's a luxury to be bothered by The Man Who Parks Outside Another Person's Home.