Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
How is this parking tax to work? If both my wife and I park in our garage would we still pay the tax? I'm actually for a tax like this if it makes people start parking in their driveways and garages. I've always been surprised how many people in my community park in the street instead of their driveways. I get that a lot of people use their garages for storage but it to see residential streets lined up with cars while driveways are empty and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
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If the street in front of your home doesn't have a "No Parking - Except by Permit" sign posted on it somewhere (or any other parking restrictions), there are no restrictions and anyone can freely park there whenever they want. This is the situation for the overwhelming majority of homes in Calgary.
If the street in front of your home has a permit-only parking restriction, you are required to have a permit in order to park on that street. This requires you to register your vehicle with the city so that it won't be ticketed by the automatic enforcement vehicles. Currently, the resident of any home that is adjacent to such a road can register up to 2 vehicles for free. You can also get one visitor permit for free that can be used by anyone visiting you for a short period of time. It currently costs a little over $100 every two years to register any additional resident vehicles beyond the free 2.
Starting in 2023 (unless something else changes before then), there will be a small fee to register vehicles in this system. Each resident will still be able to register one vehicle for free, but any additional vehicles and visitor permits will cost $15 per year to register.
An option for those who don't want to pay this registration fee is to request the city remove the permit-only parking requirement from their street.