Proposal for Changing Dallas, Texas City Ordinance 28 – 81

I am a small business owner in Dallas, living in Oak Cliff, where I spent most of my child hood. Recently, I upgraded my vehicle to a box truck so I didn’t have to rent a U-haul every weekend. Sometime ago a city ordinance was past about people parking their tractor trailers, semis, and other over sized vehicles from being parked in a neighborhood and even more so on their own property. They can actually receive a ticket for parking their own vehicle on their own property if it falls under the description of over 32 feet or 1 and a half tons. Under this description, I have found that my Truck that is only a 15″ box truck is now too large to park in my own drive way. How was I informed? A ticket for $25. The code enforcement officer said that she would be back to give me a ticket a day until I parked it somewhere else.

Now, I understand that living in a neighborhood we have a responsibility to our neighbors to keep our property in a suitable way so that their property value doesn’t go down or go too high. Unless they love paying more in taxes. Like it or not we are in this together and need to live in harmony together. I have made revisions to my drive way so that the truck can park on the side of the house to be less in sight, but I am still susceptible to receiving tickets just for having it on my property.

My proposal is to change one word in the ordinance from “property” to “street”. If this happens then people have the ability to park their own vehicles on their own property and protect people from getting tickets from parking a midsize truck like mine on their own property. I don’t think we will see an increase of semis as they don’t have the room to park it on their own property.

When this proposal was written, the purpose was to keep people from parking Really big Trucks on their property like a Semi or a large Crane. My next door neighbor’s RV is larger and heavier than my mid-sized truck! Yet, they can park it in their drive way because it is not defined as a truck? It’s called discrimination. Just because one vehicle looks different and goes by a different name. You get the point. He should be able to park it on his property, just as I should be able to park my vehical on my property. My neighbor on the other side of me works for the cable company and from time to time parks their cable truck out front or the back. It never bothers me. But by the definition of the ordinance he is also breaking the ordinance.

More over, with the cost of gas these days, it is waste of our resources to have someone go out of their way to drop off their mid sized truck at one location and then drive another smaller car from that location to their home every day that they use it. In a world where we are becoming more aware of our influence to the climate change by way of more CO2 in the air, we need to think of ways to use our vehicles less and less and to stop putting our vain pride in front of our generations sustainability on this planet.

Please email me if you agree and would like the change or if you think the ordinance doesn’t need to be changed than a reason behind your opinion would be appreciated. I am not in this just for me but to compromise with all to make this ordinance the way it needs to be for all to live in harmony.

Here is the ordinance in full:SEC. 28-81.     PARKING OF VEHICLES WITH CAPACITY OF MORE THAN ONE AND ONE-HALF TONS IN CERTAIN DISTRICTS.

(a)     A person commits an offense if he stops, parks, or stands a truck-tractor, road tractor, semitrailer, bus, trailer, or truck with a rated capacity in excess of one and one-half tons, according to the manufacturer’s classification, upon property within a residential area.  This subsection shall not apply to the parking or standing of a vehicle for the purpose of expeditiously loading or unloading passengers, freight, or merchandise.

(b)     A person commits an offense if he stops, parks, or stands a motor home, house trailer, or recreational vehicle with a rated capacity in excess of one and one-half tons, according to the manufacturer’s classification, upon any public right-of-way abutting a residential area.  This subsection shall not apply to the parking or standing of a vehicle for the purpose of expeditiously loading or unloading passengers or property.

(c)     In this section, RESIDENTIAL AREA means any block face containing a single family, duplex, or multi-family dwelling. (Ord. Nos. 14584; 19455; 20269)
richard@goographics.net or post a comment here.