City reviews trailers parked on streets

City of Havre officials are looking at changing regulations for parking campers and recreational vehicles on city streets.

City officials say they are hearing complaints both from neighborhood residents who don’t want so many trailers parked on the streets and from camper owners who think the present limit of 48 hours is not enough.

“The number of trailers has just exploded,” said Dave Peterson,the city’s director of public works.

As the number has multiplied, the problem too has gotten greater, officials said at Monday’s night’s meeting of the Havre City Council.

Trailer owners say they need more than two days, especially at the start of the season, to be able to get their campers stocked for the season.

But Police Chief Gabe Matosich said he is worried about the safety factor.

When motorists come out of side streets, they can’t see over the trailers to see if vehicles are coming down the street, the chief said.

Trailers are supposed to be parked 20 feet from the corner, he said, but that doesn’t always help.

Officers put chalk marks on trailers parked on the street to keep track of how long they stay there, Matosich said. But the present ordinance requires that trailers not be stationary for more than 48 hours. Trailer owners can move them forward a few feet and then begin another 48-hour period, he said.

Ordinance Committee members said they were willing to extend the limit from two days to five days, but they want the ordinance clear that the five-day limit is hard and fast.

Officials admitted that might be difficult.

Committee Chair Andrew Brekke said most other Montana cities have laws limiting trailers from parking on city streets, and he would check them out to see if some of the laws could be a model for a revised city ordinance in Havre.

Brekke said he had no problem with extending the limit to five days because cars have a five-day limit before they have to be moved. But he did want to have some regulations.

He was concerned that when there are campers on both sides of some of the city’s narrower streets, it might make it hard for two motorists going down the street in the opposite directions to fit.

With many vehicles being made wider, the council's Streets and Sidewalks Committee will be looking into ways of making the city's older, narrow streets more safe.