Updates to City of Bend parking code will not affect on-street campers, city says
(Update: Adding video, comments from City of Bend)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) The City of Bend is updating its current parking code for all vehicles.
"We've had the same code on the books for a really long time, and the role of parking has changed a little bit, city Chief Operations Officer Russell Grayson said Thursday. "So we just wanted to modernize the code, to kind of match existing conditions on the field."
Some of the parking code changes include prohibiting vehicles with protrusions (like RVs with pullouts) from blocking the sidewalk or travel lane, banning semi-trucks from parking between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. in residential districts. And not allowing vehicles that cannot move on their own to be parked on city streets
"What this kind of does is it allows us to monitor those situations over time, deploy different strategies, and or create districts in certain areas of town in the future to help manage those areas," he said.
The city has already cracked down on vehicle camping and vehicles left on city streets, after passing updates to their camping code. We stopped by one of Bend's popular places for houseless to park and saw no RVs or trailers. A sign of what all streets could look like soon.
But will these new parking code updates also affect those living on the streets, in the wake of recent revisions to on-street camping and parking regulations? The city says: Not exactly.
Grayson said, "This is the second part of that conversation of, what can I do with my vehicle? Where can I park my vehicle? How long can I park my vehicle somewhere? Those types of questions."
That camping code update shortened the length of time people can live in their cars, from 72 to 24 hours. But the new parking code will not contribute to the city's overall efforts to get people off the streets.
"This new parking code is about where can you actually put a vehicle within the city streets," Grayson said.
The community is invited to review the proposed draft code and make comments on the changes until Dec. 3.
You can review Bend's proposed parking code and provide feedback here.
