Parking

This is a copy of the email I sent to our landlord just a few minutes ago; tell me what you think.  It is followed by the email he first sent us - there is a little loading stall just out front of our building and I have parked the car there a few times in the last week - twice overnight, but not for more than 1 day and 1 night at a time (I'm desperate here, I'm trying to carry my own stuff plus a baby and all his stuff).

Hi Thomas,

Sorry about that, that is our car.  We can refrain from parking it there.  Let me give you some background.

I suppose we probably wouldn't have wanted to buy a parking permit for only 2 months, but we actually have never been able to obtain a parking permit for the area, in spite of  reassurances to us that it would be no problem.  The only reason it was complicated is due to the fact that we wanted to keep our Alberta plates and insurance instead of switching to ICBC. 

I worked very hard to obtain a parking permit when we first moved here, and we should have been able to - we had to compile a list of documents for ICBC - our rental agreement, a piece of mail addressed to us here, a letter of enrollment from UBC, our car registration and something called an MV23 form from our insurance agency.  While I quickly obtained everything else, our insurance agency had no idea how to help us obtain an MV23 form and the BC branch of our insurance company would not even speak to me on the phone as I have Alberta insurance. 

Our insurance broker was able to determine how to get this form for us after a few weeks, during which time we had a temporary permit that was good for mid-March to mid-April 2008.  This form was going to cost $30, so I gave our insurance broker our CC info to bill us and he told us the company would either mail or e-mail us the form.  We waited a few weeks for this, during which time our temporary permit expired.  We assumed that any tickets we received would be forgiven as soon as we purchased our permanent permit since we are actually residents and they had forgiven one ticket already when we obtained our temporary permit.

Keep in mind that this list of requirements was to apply to ICBC for a student status exemption, which we would have had to wait for, and then take that with our other documents to City Hall.

After more than two months of waiting, during which time we had been reassured again by our broker that the form was on its way, we found out that our broker had made some error and had not properly ordered the form, and our credit card had never been charged.  We still wanted a permit obviously...

But we wanted to find out if the city would forgive the tickets before we paid $30 for the form and another $30 for the permit.  The city told us they would not forgive the tickets, whether or not we had all the paperwork for the permit, and we are not about to pay more than $450 (5 tickets at $90 each) to pay another $60 to get a permit. 

So for the time that we have been living here, at least since last spring, we have been parking in the "free" zones - the last few stalls at 11th and Pine, and along Pine Street, somewhere between 11th and 16th Ave.  It has been more of a pain with a baby, of course, and when we buy groceries.  We have eight weeks to go and we are counting them down...

All that being said, you probably won't have another tenant who is out-of-province and needs a permit!

It is possible for us to find parking, it is just usually a 10 or 15 minute walk just to get to our car.  I parked at 11th and Burrard today, which is fine.  Sorry for the inconvenience.  You can probably understand our frustrating with the entire situation now that it has been over a year.  

I'm hoping that maybe we can use the loading stall for just a few minutes at a time to unload groceries?  I can move the car after unloading.  

Thanks.

Skye

From: Thomas Peters 

Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 10:35 PM 

To: Trevor Curtis Skye

Cc: Laura Peters 

Subject: car

Hi Trevor & Skye, I am presuming that you have a car Alberta plates DUA 714.  If not then please excuse me from being presumptuious and ignore the rest of this email.... We have noted this car parked in our private stall on many occaissions when we have come to the building.  Laura and I have not been able to park because of this car occupying our stall. This has been frequent. We have avoided towing as we don't want to cause hardship. I understand you have a baby and might like its convenience.  I also understand that you may not want to pay for a city parking pass in order to park on the street.  None-the-less we need to be able to use our stall. Please let me know if in fact this is your car.  If so maybe you can find some other arrangment to park... (possibly we could help you by allowing you to park at specific times only, although I am not sure how this could work.) Please get back to me if in fact this is your car.... Let me know if it is not yours. Kind regards, Thomas Peters