Bylaw Services officers return to problematic neighbourhoods to enforce parking rules: City of Ottawa

A number of Barrhaven residents on Via Verona Avenue have received parking tickets. (Natalie van Rooy/ CTV News Ottawa)

Bylaw Services insists parking enforcement in Ottawa’s suburbs is complaint driven, but officials say officers will return to problematic neighbourhoods to ticket repeat parking offenders.

The City of Ottawa has received 2,800 complaints about parking issues in Barrhaven so far this year, up from 1,600 complaints in the first five and a half months of 2024. Two Bylaw Services officers are assigned to enforce parking rules in the Barrhaven area.

Bylaw Services public information officer Jonathan Walden told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, officers are responding to a lot of calls in the suburbs about vehicles parked on city streets.

“We’re definitely getting a lot more calls that are going to result in a lot more officers attending, potentially streets that people aren’t used to seeing officers on and that will, unfortunately, result in parking tickets as well,” Walden said.

Walden insists Bylaw Services is not “targeting a neighbourhood” with parking enforcement, but will return if they receive multiple complaints or an ongoing complaint about vehicles parked on streets for extended periods of time.

“Unfortunately, it can be just one neighbour calling in a complaint. If one neighbour sees a car that’s been parked there for too long and they call us, an officer is going to attend,” Walden said.

“Unfortunately, we can’t just ticket the one car potentially that they’re calling about because that would be targeted enforcement. So, we have to proactively patrol the whole block and make sure that every vehicle is moved on that street.”

The City of Ottawa’s bylaw says vehicles may not be parked for more than three hours on unsigned streets between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday to Friday, and no more than six hours during the same period on weekends and statutory holidays.

Bylaw Services told CTV News Ottawa last week that 20,010 tickets have been issued to drivers parked in excess of the permitted time on an unsigned street so far this year. In 2024, officers issued a total of 35,453 tickets for similar violations.

“It is not a cash grab. We are enforcing the traffic and parking bylaw,” Walden said.

“These are mostly driven by complaints, especially in rural areas. We’re not proactively going out and chalking vehicles in Barrhaven just to get cash – we are responding to complaints.”

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Natalie van Rooy