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FEATURE
Trailerboat Parking Bans
OPINION: To the landlubbers who struggle to find car parking in the suburbs, the trailerboat is a curse. Many a terse word has been expressed over what appear to be unloved boats dumped in ‘their' street. But spare a thought for their owners.Not everyone has a driveway, a carport or enough spare change to rent a garage to store their boat. And, in many suburbs, there are streets running through golf courses, past public parks, even cemeteries with under-utilised parking. The photos hereabouts are taken from these kinds of locations.
Yet some Sydney councils pandering to aesthetics or, perhaps, local curmudgeons, are flexing their muscles and moving to have trailerboat parking banned.
Woollahra Council, which has a history of opposing boating amenities in its precinct, has now reportedly gained the support of North Sydney, Mosman, Waverley and Manly councils to limit kerbside boat parking in its streets.
It’s no co-incidence that the above suburbs are among Sydney’s wealthiest, where their boating constituents might rather avail themselves of a marina berth than wrestle with a boat on a trailer.
Yet the perceptions of some mayors is just plain bizarre. In respect of trailerboat parking in her municipality, Manly Mayor Jean Hay said: “These people want big boats but they don’t want to pay the added expense of having them moored properly. I think it’s despicable,”
Mayor Hay advocates placing time limits on trailer parking in Manly and notes that most of the registered boats are actually from outside the area. Well, strike me down with a feather!
Mayor Hay is way of the mark. Trailerboats are not big boats. Their owners live in the outer suburbs because they can’t afford a ritzy home in Manly, but they can buy a tinnie, lock-it up near a local ramp, and use it on weekends. This is grassroots not preclusive boating.
Thankfully, NSW councils have no jurisdiction over trailerboat parking for craft less than 7.5 metres in length. After all, we pay registration fees to use our trailers on the road.
But the aforesaid councils are reportedly making representations to state government to establish a taskforce to determine appropriate boat-parking time limits.
It is our view that rather than disadvantage struggling trailerboaters, councils should set-up designated parking areas. This would take the heat off streetscape parking near homes and shift the apparent eyesore to non-residential areas.
We boaters would probably even pay a little something if the area was monitored by security cameras and occasional council patrols. After all, council workers often have spare time on their hands.
?The problem with the lack of boat storage in NSW can be directly attributed scant little investment in boating infrastructure from government and public sectors including councils.
The creation of shopping malls that charge local employees to park, thereby sending them to residential streets, is another cause of the problem in Manly. More poor planning.
A report entitled NSW Boat Ownership and Storage: Growth Forecasts to 2026, published July 2010, predicts the number of registered boats in NSW will grow from 234,000 to 351,000 in 2026, accounting to historical data, or 334,000 based on population growth.
Either way, the report states NSW faces “significant boat storage challenge.” Councils need to be in the mix to approve amenities for boat storage rather than shifting the problem. We fear the view of these snooty councils will spread interstate.
Come on, fair go! It’s unAustralian to disadvantage the low-income boaters. How do you feel about the prospect of your local council telling you to move your boat or be slapped with a steep fine? Or worse.
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Written byBoatsales Staff
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Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
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