Dealing with the City re: parking on our property.

Now, this must probably be the weirdest most twilight zone-y experience we have had dealing with the City and its ridiculous regulations so far. Needless to mention that we still have not received our building permit, although it has been issued so Veuve Cliquot will continue chillin' peacefully in our fridge. But this is not the topic of this blog today.

Topic of today's blog is: interdiction to park my car onto my own property, on the parking pad that's located in the front of my future house... because a handful of people who should get a life, really, decided that ONE should not be able to park on their front parking pad anymore and actually passed a by-law to enforce their decision. So practically, what does this mean? Well, it is not that complicated, although completely idiotic: everyone parks at the back of their properties now, please. You know that nice backyard which was probably the reason why you bought that property you now proudly own... well, you are going to fill it with cars... Instead of filling it with beautiful garden furniture and a kick ass jungle gym for your kids, even maybe a wicked lap pool, you are going to use it to park your 4x4. Yes, I know, it makes total sense that the backyard is now turned into parking territory and the front yard may now be used to do... NOTHING! If you are lucky enough to be able to park your car on the street, I'd say you should be fine... I mean, you still have the restrictions with street parking permits but at least, you might be able to park near your house. As for us, it is another story: our new house is located on a street where there is no parking... so here is our call to the City:

- Us: "so if we can't park on our front parking pad (that, I forgot to mention existed when we bought the house from the previous owners who had a parking license... but the parking license is void in case of new construction... but of course, that goes without saying O_o), where do you advise we park?"
- City employee: "well, you can park on B. st, that's the closest to you"
- Us: " WTF are you talking about? Are you out of your fucking mind? . Yes, but B. St is 5 blocks away from our house, we have two little kids, how do we park 2 kms away and walk back home with grocery bags and two toddlers in 60 cm of snow and -40 degrees?"

At this point, we thought a trip to the parking and licensing office was becoming a NECESSITY so we could better explain the ridiculousness and absurdity of the situation.
Funny thing about the Parking and Licensing office: there is no parking there... which should give you a hint. Don't be too hopeful: you might find a poor soul that will listen to your complaint but nobody will do anything about it. Forget getting your problem solved, not gonna happen.

Here we are barging in the office with our file, looking like responsible adults, and interacting very politely with the person in charge (although, at this point, we are ready to murder someone). The employee is very very understanding (I'll give him that) and tells us he totally gets it, he will talk to his boss and will follow up with us. OK, that's not bad we thought, we can have hope, maybe they will give us a break... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Who are we kidding??? A couple of weeks later, the sentence falls "sorry but the bylaw is the bylaw and unless you manage to reverse it, (which basically is as easy as building your own rocket and flying to the moon and back successfully), you'll have to park at the back of your property or 5 blocks away from your house! And if you park on your front lawn, you will be likely to get a ticket"... Holy sh*it, a ticket??? Seriously??? Is this some kind of sick joke? Am I going to wake up now?

Quite frankly, at this point, I am pissed off. We have bought this property and we have to follow a ridiculous-absurd-unrealistic rule that was passed by complete morons who didn't even think about the consequences of their acts. I AM BEING TOLD WHAT NOT DO ON MY PROPERTY and wait, it is not like I am planning to build a nuclear facility on this piece of land, I just want to park my car on my pre-existent parking pad for God's sake!