HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Havre City Council’s Ordinance Committee convened on Monday evening and discussed two potential adjustments to ordinances.
The first item discussed would be a rewrite of an ordinance written in 1960 regarding driveways and curb cuts.
Alderman Andrew Brekke said the old ordinance is out-of-date.
“Vehicles are bigger (now), driveways are bigger, people are making all kinds of changes. Bottom line is Public Works says (the current ordinance) is antiquated. The 1960 version, it just really doesn’t meet our needs anymore.”
The Committee approved a motion to have the City Attorney draft a new ordinance modeled after the one Great Falls uses.
“There’s a few things that we would need to tailor a fix, and that just really has to do with our zoning,” said Brekke. “Great Falls has slightly different zoning in their table…This will be a complete repeal of (the old) ordinance and a rewrite adopt Great Falls’ version, which is more modern and deals with more accurately, curb cut permit requests.”
A curb cut request is when a property owner wants to either put in an approach or expand a current approach.
Once the draft is provided to the Committee, they will have the chance to vote on it and send it to the full council. Ordinance changes must be approved twice by the full council before they are enacted.
Trailer Parking
At the Ordinance Committee meeting, another issue that was discussed was trailer parking.
The current ordinance was written in 2017 and states that trailers cannot be parked on public streets, avenues, boulevards, alleys or right of ways for no more than 48 hours, and any trailer in violation may be removed at the owner’s expense.
However, those at Monday’s meeting says this ordinance has not fixed the issue, as some people have been circumventing the new rule or skirting around it.
“It doesn’t say once your 48 hours is up, once you leave, you have to be gone for so many hours before you return again,” said Havre Police Chief Gabe Matosich. “Something like that is not in there. That’s the biggest issue we have.”
A resolution to this issue has not been drafted yet, but Brekke said they could put something in writing that people that have used up their parking time cannot return for another 48 hours.
A new ordinance would also prohibit trailers from parking in a front yard if the rear yard is accessible. An exception would be made for vehicles parked on asphalt or concrete.
“You need to have a storage place for your trailer,” said Brekke. “Obviously, you can’t park it on the street because of the (current) ordinance…The problem that I see is people are encroaching on sidewalks, encroaching on driveways and doing all kinds of things because they are just trying to get it off the street to deal with (the current) ordinance.”
As proposed, the ordinance would require trailers to meet setback requirements to prevent it from encroaching on other property, sidewalks, or the road.
Another change to the ordinance could be to ban “campers or RVs stored on residential property,” from being “used for living or sleeping purposes for more than five consecutive days.”
Alderman Lindsey Ratliff expressed concerns about this part of any new ordinance.
“I have concerns, especially about some of our lower income residents, that that’s all they have. They are living in a trailer or in a camper behind their parents house, and that’s all they have. I understand it’s not probably safe, but…”
“I think they are violating a number of code violations if that’s occurring,” Brekke responded. “Not just ours, but health and sanitary, in particular, right? I understand what you’re saying, a lot of communities have this issue, Bozeman has a major problem with this right now. This is specifically on your private property, this isn’t specifying, well, I guess you can’t live at all on the street. But we do not want to be promoting, as a health code, I don’t think, people living in their trailer on a permanent basis. It’s not a good idea. It’s not designed for that.”
Penalties for those found in violation would be similar to current standards for ordinance violations, according to Brekke.
The Committee did not take any action on the issue and will continue discussions in December.
