It is becoming clearer by the day that, as caravan numbers surge and residential block sizes get smaller, the issue of RV storage on suburban streets is going to become a hot button issue.
The debate was turbocharged last week when the Local Government Association Queensland (LGAQ) conference passed a motion calling for the state government to implement laws restricting on-street parking for recreational vehicles.
The issue, presented by the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast councils, will now form part of the LGAQ’s advocacy platform.
There will be no immediate changes to any policy.
Grey nomads though appear divided on what the best approach is.
Space galore! Parking a van on the street isn't a big deal in many locations. PIC: Cizza
Responding to our original story in the issue, there was broad consensus that some streets were not suitable for long-term parking of large vehicles, but many argued that – as long as the vehicle was registered and was obeying local regulations – there was no drama.
“Part of the problem is that yards are too tiny to accommodate either a caravan or motorhome,” said one poster.
Another questioned what the big deal was.
“We live in an area full of townhouses with RVs parked in the street,” they said. “We just drive around them!”
Of course, the underlying factors suggest that this is an issue which will continue to garner more attention.
Many van owners say their alternative to parking on the street when not travelling is limited to professional storage facilities, which can be expensive and are often full in any case.
Long term, there are concerns in some quarters that any street parking crackdown could have a negative effect on caravan ownership numbers … and, by extension, on regional tourism.
Caravan Trade and Industries Association of Queensland chief executive, Jason Plant, told the ABC that he acknowledged there were concerns about congestion and harmony that are genuine and deserve attention … but said van owners needed to be considered.
“If they’re forced to move those products to an off-site storage facility somewhere, costs come with that, accessibility challenges come with that, and we would hate to see that lead to a changing attitude towards recreational vehicle ownership,” he said. “There would be far-reaching unintended negative consequences if that were to occur, as far as tourism goes.”
Mr Plant said one thing he would like to see is councils getting stricter on new housing developments.
“Some of these new housing developments don’t allow a lot of space for vehicle movement down the streets, let alone the ability to park and store products within their property,” he told the ABC. “I think better planning needs to be considered when looking at these new developments to ensure that there is space to accommodate for the people that live there, for their lifestyle choice as well.”
Sunshine Coast Mayor Rosanna Natoli has said there is a long way to go before any changes are made in Queensland and there will be opportunity for public consultation as things progress.
“This is an issue impacting our council and others across the state with residents complaining about safety concerns, a lack of available parking and neighbourhood streets that are clogged and ugly,” she said. “We receive 700 complaints a year plus thousands of signatures on petitions and we are not alone … we are calling for the State Government to assist us with legislation to manage this for our communities.”
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The cost of storage is astonishing, and increasing all the time ($4000+ per annum). Maybe Councils can deliver high rise van storage where there will be an economy of scale? Build facilities next too the tiny housing estates that are being jammed together these days.
In my neighborhood the streets are too narrow for vans, visibility and access is compromised by vans. Poor planning, bigger vans and large cars all mean street parking should not occur. If you have a van, consider how you store it.
Before you even decide to look at buying a van or boat work out where you will store it, too late after you have purchased the toy!
Great reply ,All this should be worked out before buying
Too right, always think before you purchase anything!
AGREED …. that would be a smart approach and storage is part of the cost just as is all the other costs
They decided to park the unit on the street. Decision made.
I tried to do this thought I was following the law wasn’t parked within 3mtrs of a drive or in a restricted area. Made sure I wasn’t even outside anyone’s house where they may park a second or third car.
But then found out after a neighbour complained that my council has a bylaw that they can only be parked for 7days.
Even while on the phone looking for this bylaw in the document it took time to find it with the council worker directing me to the document.
If state laws are being superseded by local by laws, they need to make that information more accessible.
I tried to do the right thing it wasn’t in anyone’s way but because a neighbour didn’t like it I now have to pay storage.
In reality the problem is caused by greedy developers and lax councils.
Developers want to minimise block sizes and reduce the width of streets so they can squeeze the maximum selling space out of a development.
They don’t care about streets being barely wide enough for two small cars and houses being so large on the block there is minimum parking at the front off the road.
Councils are no better allowing developers to get away with this and forcing verge parking which they then issue fines for.
Government legislation should set minimum block sizes, minimum street widths, minimum front setbacks to allow for parking in driveways and street verges If required and enforce Councils to abide by that.
Sadly even here in ‘the’ Shire, whilst Council are trying to maintain peoples quality of life by open leafy spaces and traditional 1/4 acre blocks, the State Government is overriding nearly all DA rejections, and forcing Councils to increase densities to multi-story often occupying the entire site with no space to store RV’s and no green space left, just concrete everywhere.. Its a significant 1st world problem. The only answer is to move away from all your friends to a country town or out of the big smoke anyway. Thats not good for older people whose support network might have taken many decades to develop the relationships in their area, only to be forced to lose it if they want to maintain the opportunity to explore Australia.
I agree with you. The streets should be wider so you can safely park on them. Every home should have enough room on the property to park their vehicles.
I can categorically say that a friend who worked for a council said that it’s NOT always the developers but the Councils with the small blocks. One instance he said was in a court at the top of the street it was divided into 3 blocks by the developer BUT council made them develop it into 5 blocks for extra rates !! This is just one instance that I know of…. it’s not always greedy developers !! This didn’t happen up here in Qld. by the way so goes to show you it’s everywhere !!
Totally agree. Well said.
Blocks are too small. Factor the price of storage into your purchase of caravan. Roads should not be an obstacle course for the other residents.
That’s their problem, they bought the block knowing the size and that the van wouldn’t fit on there, so why buy, and a lot buy the land, build a house then buy a monster van and expect to be able to block streets by parking there. There’s a word for them, “Entitled, or arrogant”
What’s the words for those who build houses with garages and driveways yet clutter up the street? Entitled or arrogant or both?
How many of the “other residents” park their cars in the street instead of on their blocks? Its epidemic where I live and they create just as much of a problem as caravans and boats with respect to safety, access and visual amenity.
For many, their paid for driveways and garages are rarely used.
Too right.
Council’s need to look at their attitudes and laws. I bought myself a half acre block in a quiet island area in Qld to slowly garden, develop and retire on. I bought myself a neat but older van and I parked it on my block. I had a couple nights in it to plant, fence and mow. A neighbour who never bothered to introduce herself rang in to Council and suggested that I was camping. I received a Show Cause Notice that I had changed the Use of a vacant block and was told to remove the van and a small boat trailer. Ironic thing is I could have just parked it on the street! Go Figure …. I sold the block, the Council never followed up after the Show Cause deadline but it left such a bad feeling.
What’s the world coming to!
Interfering neighbours can cause problems. Our 8m van was parked outside our house for quite a few months & it was not blocking anyones ability to see clearly or access their driveways. Our street is wide & a crescent so you can park on it & its not a major thoroughfare. But our new neighbour dobbed us in & Council said we have to move our van as it is over 7m or would face a fine of $120 an hour if we didnt. None of our long term neighbours had ever complained & if the new neighbour had not brought it to the attention of the Council & measured it before he complained we would still have it parked out the front of our house. Im sorry to hear you had to sell your land. I hope you have bought somewhere else thats more suitable.
The fault is really the greedy councils in the first place for allowing the street sizes to be downgraded, all they saw was dollars in in their eyes with the size of the developers giving money to have their plans approved. We were visiting a prize home on Sunshine coast a few years ago in a rabbit Warren under construction & even the tradies were having trouble with parking. Who ever allows the street width to be narrowed needs to wear the consequences not th van owners or any resident that has a vehicle, as some don’t even have space for 1 car. With no reliable transport services people need to drive & park the vehicles & vans.
The fault all goes back to the councils in the first place as they created the mess they are in, no matter who complains they need to take responsibility for their own mess. It is legal to park a registered vehicle of any kind on the street.
My “wise” local council recently approved a large housing development with properties banned from having a driveway accessible from the streetfront. All vehicle access is to be via the narrow back lane which will surely cause MAJOR problems for anything bigger than a moped. All this in a regional town in NSW.
In our suburb, people from neighbouring streets are parking their vans in our street. It’s utter chaos. I’d like to see the law change so vans and boats aren’t to be parked on suburban streets.
I live in the beautiful Barossa Valley I can’t recall seeing any caravan’s or boat’s parked on the streets around the Valley, yes it comes down to greedy councils with block sizes and people and their purchases, if you can’t store it don’t buy it.
I purchased the size block I wanted 24 years ago so I could put up a descent shed and a double driveway all the way to it as well as a double driveway/carport, know what you’re doing before you buy or build.
News reports indicate that the Queensland State Government is open to rural landholders being allowed to offer van storage. This has been opposed by local government on the grounds that they will have to change the property zoning from rural to commercial/industrial.
Talk about bureaucratic bullshit. If there was a genuine will they’d find a way. Far easier for the tin god administrators to take a stick to the little guy rather than got off their shiny arses and devise a satisfactory solution!
Hit the nail on the head Rod!
Professional storage facility. Very expensive!!!
I have mine and 4×4 set just outside a major Queensland popular city/town on the coast 3 to 4 hours north of Brisbane for $25 a week for summer or $150 a week for winter’s, I must admit for health reasons as I can no longer survive the southern cold winter’s, then I fly in and out with my wheelchair and luggage. If you’re willing to look hard enough you’ll find an alternative or something, so my storage fee’s are $600 for six months while I’m home having 3 operations last summer and up to 4 this summer ☀️
Basically, if you cannot store your toy off the public domain, you cannot afford it. It’s that simple. Penny pinching lazy or selfish people effectively using the public streets as a defacto storage yard often blocking the view of approaching traffic and turning some streets into junkyards devaluing adjacent properties. We ensured that we can park our RV’s on our block, but I acknowledge that its going to be a problem for us when we have to downsize, as most over 50 places don’t have room for every person to store multiple RV’s nor decent repair workshop facilities?
Perhaps any proposed changes should include cars parked on the street.
To use some of your words, “if you can’t afford to store your car off the public domain, you can’t afford it.
Councils wont do this though, as they are approving developments with only one on site carpark. Guess where the other car goes?
We are fortunate in living in the Gemlife Woodend (Vic) Over 50s Lifestyle Village, we have a secure caravan park in the village that caters for 30 of us caravanners, plus it has a car/caravan wash facility.
We have been motorhoming for over 20 years. The problem is not the councils. It is the people who buy the caravan or motorhome. Our first consideration before we bought a motorhome was where can we park it off the street. The reason was security of the motorhome and consideration of our neighbours. We modified our front yard to put our 7 meter motorhome parked on our land. We were fortunate we could do this. We would not have purchased it if this could not be done as storage was out of the question because of cost and distance from our home.I believe if you cannot do that then do not buy the van or motorhome. Parking them on the street is dangerous and wrong no matter where it is. Nothing to do with councils.
I totally agree it comes down to the selfish owners no consideration for other people
Rubbish! Try to buy a decent suburban block today! Impossible due to council greed to increase their income! Why should anyone be dictated by greedy councillors whether they can have a van? If the mongrels have their way they’d have suburbs full of six packs, useless skinny roads with a roundabout on every intersection and no parking for ANY vehicles!
Wow, talking about going off track to the subject. This has got nothing to do with anyone else but the caravan owner. If you cant store it properly, don’t buy it. Its as simple as that. Why should other people be inconvenienced by your poor planning.
We built our house around our semi off road caravan, although we can appreciate that not everyone has this option.
One of our sons leaves their campervan on the road, although the road is wide enough to accommodate it.
We can appreciate the dilemma. If the street is wide enough, then that is why we pay registration.
Are we allowed to park our car on the road ???
Totally agree. If your street is wide enough & not blocking any neighbours view or access to safely drive onto the road then you should be able to park your caravan, motorhome or boat on the road outside the front of your home. Our property although big enough has a steep slope in the front that makes it impossible to.park the van. We do park our 2vehicles on our property. Council shiuld l9ok at cases individually.
Our camper is in our garage, beside it is our small car. The tug, our ute, is parked in the street.
The garage is a tight fit for the 2 smaller things.
We can’t park the ute under the garaport without overhanging the path because our villa is set very close to the front.
Only 1 in 3 houses have any off street parking in our area because its pre 1920s cottages and villas
Others in the street have their camper trailer on the property and the car in the street. Those with no parking off street have both in the street. Some do same with their big vans, but only seasonally
Lots of streets in our burb arent wide enough for 2 skinny cars to park opposite and have one pass in the middle..
Is it really any better to have parking lot front yards like all the duplex infills have?
Bring back 20m house frontages and wide streets
Totally agree.
If you cant leave your van on your property or immediately in front of your own property then I believe it should be park at a storage facility. Kerbside parking is unofficially and politely priority parking for the property owner fronting the road. I went to great lenghts to ensure I could park my van on my property.
We can park our caravan safely in front of our property as our crescent is wide & we are not blocking anyones view to safely access the road. But our Council has a rule & if your van is over 7m long it cannot be parked on the road or you will be fined $120 an hour!
I store my van in the drive way.
Youre lucky. We would too if we didnt have a steep sloping block. We park both our cars in the driveway.
Here on the Sunny Coast , couple of wingers got together and created a Facebook page. Some streets and areas should be a no go for parking.modt new developments here pander to the developers and have no side access or front yards are too small for anything. Oh well Council get the additional rates.sayoing this I have a 7mtr motorhome, no wider than a lot of cars, pay registration, I park legal, correctly and apart from height take up no more space than a car or indeed most 4×4,S. Wheres the problem and why do Council think it appropriate to disallow the parking. Of course if this happens are all utes and trucks under 4495kgs going to get the same treatment
Our street has a large park on one side leading to our gated complex. There are up to seven trailers and caravan (permanently parked) there. Pretty sure all these belong to people who live in the side streets. Their streets are not wide but the houses are at least 20 years old.
Better to clog up our street than use there own driveways etc. Quite an eyesore especially when trailers are full of rubbish and garden refuse.
Councils eagerly approve new estates, where the developer submits their plans for as “many new homes” as possible in a “given space” for obvious reasons. The more homes built equates to “more rates” collected.
Australia is a huge country, yet Councils are “cramming” (like a tin of sardines) more and more people into either high rise buildings or tiny home plots of land, where the “roofs of houses” are almost touching each other.
Greedy and corrupt councils are the root cause of these problems, yet nothing happens to them, as usual.
We are lucky enough to store our caravan at our holiday house as our van is 8m long & Council will not let us park it on the road outside our house. If we do we would get a fine of $120 per hour. If our van was under 7m it would be alright to park it on the road in front of our house.Our property has a very steep slope out the front so we cannot park on it. We do have quute a wide frontage & we park our cars on our property & I wish we could park our van on the street outside our house as it would be so much more convenient when packing for a long trip. We have to transport all our stuff 3 hours north to our holiday house.
I think it should depend on how wide your street is & how much frontage you have out the front of your property so that you could park your van safely even if it is 8m in length & as long as its not obstructing a neighbours drive & gives them clear access it should be allowed. It should be decided on an individual basis.
Would it help to allow wider vehicles to place the nearside wheels up to 1 meter onto the verge? Especially in narrow heavily built-up suburbs?
When we’re not on the road we store our caravan on a white pebble rectangular pad the length & width of our caravan in our front garden. We’ve spent a total of 6 months every year away on various trips for the past 15 years.
Our caravan has been parked on its pad the remainder of the time.
We use home made wooden ramps to ease it over the kerb when reversing it into position. We have 3 locks on it.
Not a problem.
These days it doesn’t matter if you have a rv or caravan or even an suv, which most people have today. Parking on the street is near impossible as the roadways get more narrow with every new estate that comes along. Houses take up most of the land there put on , so even Parking in your own driveway has become very difficult. When we have an ever growing population and every household has sometimes more than 3 cars most have 2 minimum. Just a bit of time and thought to how our roads are put together is the strongest possible way of combating this ever growing problem.
Nothing to do with councils, they should be looking after pot holes and rubbish, ceos on huge money think they rule there councils! Well you don’t ,
We cutback on our front garden ,layed small pebbles & leave our van here untill our next trip.
A major problem for many residents with visibility coming out of driveways.
Street parking needs a change that will benefit both residents and van owners.
There needs to be a perfect balance,safety for all concerned is the priority.
How do we address this issue without harming the van industry?
If these towns consider it important to have van visitors, well it’s important to accommodate the vans with as close to town off street parking.
Maybe a reserve not in use.
A simple solution should be able to be achieved for both the benefit of van owners and residents.
I understand the frustration that both residents and van owners do have.
We store on the road in front of our apartment building. But having said that we are lucky to live in older suburb and street is really wide.