The City of Campbell River is looking at cost-effective ways to dispose of abandoned cars.
On last night’s council agenda was the Traffic and Highways Regulation Amendment Bylaw.
The bylaw gives the City the ability to dispose of abandoned vehicles directly, subject to notice to the vehicle owner.
City staff says that this would eliminate the added cost of extra tow and storage fees that may not be recoverable.
After giving 14 days’ notice the City would have the authority to tow the abandoned vehicle directly to a wreckers yard.
The City’s director of planning Pete Wipper says the change is a more efficient way of dealing with abandoned vehicles.
“Currently when we are notified of an abandoned vehicle, we have to give notice and eventually we have to tow it to a storage facility, we have to pay for the storage cost, and then once that period is completed, then we’ll tow it again to a wreckers’ yard,” Wipper said. “The bylaw amendment simply streamlines that process where we would simply give 14 days notice to the vehicle owner, and if they don’t respond we would tow it directly to the wreckers yard.”
A staff report notes that recommendations would not result in the need for additional staff or financial resources.
“Implementation of the amended regulations should, in fact, reduce costs to the City in dealing with abandoned vehicles,” the report says.
Currently, when an abandoned vehicle is reported, a bylaw enforcement officer attends to obtain information on the vehicle including make, model, colour, license plate number and the vehicle identification number (VIN).
Depending on the circumstances, the officer has four options:
- If the vehicle is posing a safety concern, it is towed immediately and a follow-up phone call is made and a letter sent to the registered owner.
- If the vehicle has been parked safely, a phone call is made and a letter sent to the registered owner advising that the vehicle will be towed if not moved from the public roadway.
- If the registered owner cannot be contacted or does not respond, the officer contacts the local tow company who, depending on the circumstances, either tows it back to their yard or to a City storage yard.
- If the vehicle has value, the company will tow and store the vehicle at no cost to the City. The tow company holds the vehicle until the owner claims it by paying the required towing and storage fees or the company recovers its costs by auctioning off the vehicle through a provincially regulated process.
- If the vehicle does not have sufficient value for the tow company to recover its costs, then it will only tow and store the vehicle at the City expense. Towing costs average approximately $90 and daily storage fees are $30/day. City staff says that this creates a problem “because if the vehicle is not claimed, then the City is left paying the daily storage fees until the required notification process has been completed. Once that period ends the City pays again to have the vehicle towed to a wrecker’s yard.”
“To avoid storage costs, the Operations Department has allowed vehicles to be stored on City property however this is not an ideal arrangement because of space constraints,” the report said.
To reduce to City’s costs to dispose of abandoned vehicles with little value, staff contacted the City solicitor who confirmed that a legal mechanism through an amendment to the City’s Traffic & Highways Bylaw would allow them to deal with these vehicles in a more cost-effective manner.
