City Council voted Monday to pass a controversial parking bill that expands restrictions on large vehicles and "junker cars."
Councilmembers who supported the bill said it is meant to help better enforce violations by large semi-trailer trucks and abandoned vehicles parked on streets for weeks at a time. They said those vehicles block business, resident and pedestrian access - something Councilmembers receive a lot of constituent calls about. But, they said, it can take up to months for the city to respond.
Opponents of the bill agreed those issues exist, but said the legislation will not get the job done. Instead, they warned it will target people living in their cars and those experiencing poverty or homelessness.
The bill passed 11-1, with Councilmember Candi CdeBaca voting no and Councilmember Robin Kniech absent.
"There have been a lot of concerns raised, and some of them helped us make a much better bill," said Councilmember and co-sponsor Jolon Clark, who called the bill a "compromise." "It makes incremental changes."
CdeBaca said she voted no in part because she sees city capacity as a bigger hurdle to enforcement and because she does not think it addresses the deeper issue of helping people living in their cars.
"Living next to Purina and Union Pacific, we get the semi-trucks that are parked in neighborhoods waiting for their pickups and they're not supposed to be there, and we also get the RVs where people live, and we also get the RVs that are abandoned, and so this is a huge issue in my neighborhood," she said at City Council Monday. "I don't think that this ordinance is particularly solving the problem."
Before passing the bill, City Council approved two last-minute amendments, in an effort to respond to community concerns. Here's how it all works:
Most of Denver's parking violation enforcement comes from called-in complaints. The legislation, co-sponsored by Clark along with Councilmembers Kendra Black and Paul Kashmann, seeks to close loopholes that city officials say allow people to evade enforcement.
Officials cited examples of people moving "junker" cars within the 72-hour parking period. During this time, officials would lose track of cars and have to start the ticketing process over. In other situations, people would lock themselves inside cars to prevent officials from getting required contact information, preventing ticketing.
The legislation now includes language expanding the definition of "junker" cars; reducing the amount of time "junkers" can be parked on the street without violation; expanding parking restrictions on large vehicles to include the entire city and lowering requirements for posted notice before towing a car. An amendment passed in April also closed a loophole requiring people parked on residential streets outside their homes to move their cars to new spots every 72 hours. Now, regular cars parked in areas without meters or time limits, like many residential streets, can return to their same spot near their home when returning from work or other travel.
Advocates against the bill said the new definition of a "junker" would be far too broad and unfairly target people who cannot afford to fix their cars. Before the final vote, Clark passed an amendment changing that definition of a "junker." The original version would have defined a "junker" as a car that is "inoperable, disabled or in an unsafe condition, or which does not have a current license plate" or that was "extensively" damaged, such as with broken windows or missing lamps.
Despite going through committee and two readings in front of all City Council, Clark called this language a "mistake" in the bill. He said it was supposed to define junkers as cars that are both "inoperable" and "extensively" damaged-a change that passed Monday night.
Kashmann also passed a last-minute amendment requiring a 48-hour notice, instead of the new 24-hour notice, before towing "junker" vehicles "if the person removing the vehicle reasonably believes it is being used as a residence," according to the amendment. The amendment also adds annual reporting requirements for officials enforcing violations.
Advocates said the amendments were positive changes, but that the bill as a whole will still target people experiencing homelessness.
"A few amendments were passed that I'm glad passed, because they do make some attempt at reducing the harms of the bill, but overall, definitely disappointed by the result," said ACLU Colorado Staff Attorney Anna Kurtz, who had written Councilmembers two letters in the past week urging them to vote down the bill. "I think that this is going to cause a lot of harm to people who are already having a pretty hard time."
Terese Howard, who organizes with the homeless advocacy nonprofit Housekeys Action Network, said the amendment about "junker" cars was a positive step, but that the bill will still target people who are often unable to pay for car repairs and fines.
Howard also criticized the amendment requiring 48-hours for outreach for "junker" cars people might be living in. She said she was skeptical of enforcement staff's ability to recognize and appropriately respond to people living in their cars.
"These types of blank statements do not amount to what it actually requires to have effective, meaningful outreach," Howard said. "Meaningful outreach is not possible in this bill because there needs to be resources tied to it. There needs to be either funding that results in possible repair, or there needs to be housing that people can actually get into or other ways of addressing the fact that people have to be somewhere, and if you have a vehicle, your vehicle has to be somewhere."
Instead, Howard wants the city to dedicate a car repair fund for people living in their cars and create special tags designating vehicles as residences to exempt people living in cars from restrictions. She also wants Denver to waive towing and ticketing fees for people who cannot pay.
Two people spoke at City Council open comment praising the bill and citing "lawlessness" in the city. More than a dozen people showed up in opposition. One of them was Phoenix Noirè, who spent about a year living in his car in 2021. He said that after his car got totaled, he got arrested, the city towed his car and he bounced around between abandoned buildings, hotels and jails. After City Council passed the bill, Noirè threw his sign reading "Homeless Lives Matter" at the dais, and was escorted out by security.
"Almost everything I owned, gone when that car was gone," he told Denverite. "[The bill] could very well have affected me, but it's not about me... I've already lost my car."
