Columbia has upped enforcement on front-yard parking. How to avoid a ticket
If you’ve been hit with a fine for parking in your front yard recently, you might not be alone.
The city of Columbia upped its parking enforcement for residents parking in their front yards in mid-January. City ordinances require residents in neighborhoods to park in a defined parking space on their property and not on grass or dirt in their front yard.
After years of issuing warning tickets and taking habitual offenders of the rule to court, the city’s code enforcement arm began passing out $50 tickets for violations in January. Here’s what to know about the rules and how to avoid getting a ticket:
Where am I allowed to park?
The city’s ordinance requires parking spaces on properties in residential areas be clearly marked and filled in using materials like: asphalt, brick, concrete, crushed stone, gravel or mulch.
For allowable size of the parking space, that’s determined by yard size. The space can either be 40% of the size of the front yard or 500 square feet, whichever is greater.
How can I avoid a ticket?
Aside from following the ordinance and only parking in the defined space, city officials also emphasized maintaining the space itself. That means if grass starts growing from your mulch or the stakes marking the space fall down, be sure to address them quickly to avoid a ticket.
“It has to be maintained,” Richard Blackmon, the city’s chief code enforcement officer, told The State. “If you put gravel there, that’s great, but you can’t let the gravel wash away and not put it back and there are just a couple pieces there, and you say it’s still a parking place because now it’s dirt again.”
The ordinance also doesn’t just target vehicles like cars or trucks. It’s also meant for boats, all-terrain vehicles like four-wheelers, motorcycles and campers.
Why did a code enforcement officer give me a ticket?
The majority of tickets are written as a result of complaints from neighbors, Blackmon told The State.
The enforcement department, which has 12 full-time code enforcement inspectors spread across different areas of the city, addresses violations they hear about from complaints, and they also patrol neighborhoods looking for violations of the ordinance.
In the past, Blackmon said, the department typically handed out warning letters letting people know about the ordinance. After dealing with a number of habitual offenders, the city began issuing court summons for repeated violations and didn’t have much luck getting people to court so it turned to a system that relies on fines instead of summons.
“We would send them a letter or try to issue them a summons, and we just wouldn’t get that finality to placate the other citizens that were being affected by them breaking the code,” Blackmon said.
How much are the tickets?
A violation of the ordinance comes with a fine. The city began charging $50 per violation in January.
Multiple violations don’t mean higher violations, Blackmon said. The ticket is $50 each time and doesn’t go up if you continue to park in your front yard.
How can I appeal my ticket?
Each ticket, like parking tickets handed out at meters around town, has instructions with how to appeal it. The process typically involves contacting the enforcement division of the city’s police department.
From there, you’ll be put in touch with the code enforcement inspector who wrote the ticket who will walk you through the violation and explain it. You’ll be given a chance to explain your reason for appeal and the inspector can review it. From there, they can decide whether to drop the ticket.
One excuse that’s not going to work? “I’ve always done this in the past, why can’t I now?”
Blackmon said that doesn’t count as a valid reason for the violation. If you disagree with the inspector’s decision, they’ll walk you through the process of moving the appeal up through the municipal court.
Who can I call if I’m confused or need help staying in compliance?
Zoning ordinances and city rules can be tricky sometimes. If you’re unclear on whether your parking spot meets the requirements, you can reach out to the city’s code enforcement division. That office can be reached by calling 803-545-3430 and choosing option 7.
