We pay to park here! Rant

[Athos_000]

The company I work for rents office space from a university (which is very convenient for me since I attend grad school and also teach here). Part of our rental agreement is that the university provide parking for us since the parking situation is generally bad.

At the beginning of the semester they designated 10 parking spaces for our use (up from 5 last year), which usually meant that I was left with 1 or 2 free ones to park in, because the others were taken by rude, lazy students who will drive around and park here rather than park at the dorms and walk to class. Two days ago they decided we didn't need 10 parking spaces, and removed 8 of the "company parking only" signs. So now I have NO place to park, because of course the two left for me are stolen.

The university's solution to students parking in our spaces is to issue them a $10 ticket and withold their grades if they don't pay up. Eventually they pony up the money (or their parents do so they can get their grades/graduate), but $10 is worth it to most of them, and not seen as a deterrent to parking here. So the problem continues.

MY solution would be to charge them $50 and have their cars towed. It would only take one or two and the problem would disappear. No student wants to pay a towing bill on top of a $50 fine, and most parents would not be so willing to shell out the money for that one either.

I would like to lodge a complaint (again) with the campus security, but since today is the last regular day of class before finals begin next week, it seems a bit silly. I guess I will just wait until next semester when the problem resurfaces full force. 

Thanks for letting me rant, I am much calmer now and can get back to work

[Twik]

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, so take this with as much salt as necessary. However:
 
If you're paying rent, and the spaces are part of your company's lease, they are YOUR spaces, as far as I know. I don't see why the number of spaces you get can be arbitrarily changed by the university. If you signed for 10, and are paying for 10, you should get 10.

And since they are YOUR spaces, not the university's, you should be able to have people parking in them towed if necessary. I recommend your company check their contract before next term - if necessary, replace the signs with your own, and let the university know what your new policy is. As you say, after a few people get towed, the message should get around.

[Athos_000]

That is a good idea. I think the terms are a bit more general (I don't know for sure, I am not privy to the rental arrangements even though at this point I am the only employee they affect). There are several companies renting space on campus and the spots are designated for all companies. I believe some of the companies in my building have moved to another building or off campus, which is why they cut down on the parking (to make more room for students I was told ... lol). *sigh* in the grand scheme of things it is nothing, but it tends to frustrate me to no end!

[Twik]

OK, I can see if the number of spaces isn't officially specified in the lease, the university can make changes on the fly. However, I'd still check your lease - if you are promised, say, a minimum of 2 parking spaces, and they are occupied by students, you should be able to have them towed. In addition, you can tell the university you were promised parking - you may want to renegotiate the lease if they can't live up to that. Just because they're a university doesn't mean that they don't have to act like a business with their tenants.

[RuneGuardian]

It's too bad you couldn't 'accidentally' key the cars of the students in question, but I think only in certain situations will a violation of etiquette resolve another violation of etiquette.

My school rents two apartment buildings for the students, and they've been having similar problems - with people parking in spaces not assigned to them. I believe we are allowed one parking space per apartment. Now people will get their cars towed if they're in someone else's spot. I'm sure it's been somewhat effective considering the payment for a tow probably is not exactly pocket change.

[Slartibartfast]

$10!  Wow!  My school's parking fees ranged from $110 for a simple ticket to $250 for parking in a handicapped spot for 10 minutes (for some reason the university made 90% of the lot near our dorm handicapped slots, which is silly because the only way to get out of the parking lot is up or down a flight of stairs or back out the entrance ramp to the highway).

What bugged me was football weekends - if we had a home game, all students had to move their vehicles from the giant student lot to a different lot all the way across campus sometime between 10 PM Friday and 7 AM Saturday, and move their vehicles back to the student lot by 7 AM Monday.  If you didn't remember to move your car, there was a $110 parking ticket and $150 towing fee for them to tow your car to the other lot, then another $110 ticket and $150 towing fee to have it towed back to where it started two days later.  So if you wanted to go out of town (without your car) on a home game weekend, it cost you $520!

[Sirius]

My apartment complex has one designated parking place per apartment.  Mr. Sirius and I have two cars, and since I work at home and it's often icy here on winter mornings, I let Mr. Sirius park his car in the covered parking space.  This isn't a real problem for us.  However, one of the apartments in the building next to ours houses at least three single guys, and each of them has two vehicles.  There's one designated parking place per apartment, which results in most of the guest spaces near our apartment taken up by vehicles belonging to these three single guys.  (One of their cars has a car alarm that keeps going off right outside our bedroom window, too, but I digress.)  If I get home late from a function, I'm often hard pressed to find a parking place on our apartment's side of the complex.  I live in the 200 building, and I've had to park by the 2100 building and hike through the dark to get to our apartment. 

And when I worked at the Air Force hospital, there were numerous briefings about Tricare for retirees.  Those of us who routinely parked in the employee spaces on the north side of the building had to find other places to park, because those spaces had to be left for the retirees.  Mr. Sirius and I carpooled, but we'd still have to park clear on the opposite side of the hospital, usually in the mud.  I feel for the person who gets stuck with the parking mess on football weekends; my feeling was, there was plenty of parking on the north side of the building since we had four designated employee lots on that side, but we couldn't convince the hospital hierarchy of that. 

[Moogle]

Back when I was in college, us dormers had our own parking lot where the non-dormers were not allowed to park.  Some college students thought they could fool our security guards and would park in our parking lot.  After several ignored warnings, our security guard got mad and promptly let out all of the air out of two tires.  The college students never parked in our lot again.

Another incident had one college student park right in the walkway from the dorms to the college.  His car was an itty bitty car.  One big dormer, on his way to class, stopped right in front of the car, climbs up and walks on top of the car, leaving footprints on the roof and hood.  Same car was never seen in the parking lot again.

I know those people were rude but the policies in parking were very clear that non-dormers were not allowed to park in the dormers' parking lot.

[graceh9]

you are absolutely right -- the ONLY way to assure that reserved spaces are not taken is to tow -- fines are just space rental -- even a 50$ fine might not deter some rich little git -- but towing gets their attention

your company should insist that the university tow or authorize you all to have the cars towed -- most cities have towing companies that are thrilled to be allowed to do this -- it is very lucrative for towing companies

[Rei-chan]

I hear you on the parking problems.  In DH and my first apartment, only residents were given parking stickers, and there was a big sign posted on the outside of the building that unstickered cars would be towed by "insert name here" garage.  The only problem was that starting on Thursdays, the tenants a few doors down would throw parties all through the weekend and I would come home from work at 3 am with no place to park.  Every time that I would call the garage that was supposed to tow, the dispatcher would insist that she would not wake up the driver to come and tow unless I was broken down on the side of the road somewhere, even though I read the sign to her.  She then suggested that I park on the street (which was a no parking zone complete with signs), and when I asked her if my car would then be towed, she would say "well, of course, if it is there at 8 am".  I then asked her how much it cost to get a car out that had been towed and she said "80$"  when I informed her that I had 800$ of revenue just waiting for their company, she repeated what she had said about not waking the driver and hung up.  It took repeated calls from me to the housing management and from them to the garage (which they had a contract with to tow at our building) to get them to start towing OCCAISIONALLY and I STILL had to block people in that weren't supposed to be there just to go home after a 12 hour shift and go to bed.  Needless to say, we moved after our lease was up.  

[MadMadge43]

This reminds me of my favorite quote in college. "One cannot learn, if one cannot park".

I might use the same quote to your landlords, "One cannot work, if one cannot park".

And I do think they need to be more serious about their parking tickets. Our campus would put the boot on anyone with more than three outstanding parking tickets.  But that's a huge battle, I'm not sure you're willing to undertake.

Instead let's fight a smaller one. Can you park behind their cars so they can't leave? Then leave a note saying if you would like your car moved please come see me in office 101. This should sufficiently horrify them enough not to do it the next time.

[Athos_000]

This reminds me of my favorite quote in college. "One cannot learn, if one cannot park".

I might use the same quote to your landlords, "One cannot work, if one cannot park".

And I do think they need to be more serious about their parking tickets. Our campus would put the boot on anyone with more than three outstanding parking tickets.  But that's a huge battle, I'm not sure you're willing to undertake.

Instead let's fight a smaller one. Can you park behind their cars so they can't leave? Then leave a note saying if you would like your car moved please come see me in office 101. This should sufficiently horrify them enough not to do it the next time.

Hahaha! I would LOVE to do this! Unfortunately if I parked behind them I would be blocking the main driveway into the parking lot.

[MadMadge43]

I would still then leave a note. They probably have no idea that you're paying for the space and probably haven't even though that someone actually parks there. I know they should know, but sometimes people just don't. If they continue keep leaving nastier notes until they finally get the hint. Or figure out what time their class schedule is and wait outside for them.

[LadyJaneinMD]

Unfortunately, towing won't help either.  I spent years working at two universities. They were Ivy League, and the students' parents paid more for tuition than I made in a year.   They would constantly be parked in some of the worst places, and tickets would pile up and towing would happen all day, every day.  I was the one who had to print those parking and towing bills for the parents, and they thought nothing of paying THOUSANDS of dollars for their darling's grades at the end of the semester.  The students just didn't care, and Daddy cheerfully paid the bills.  Employees were low on the totem pole.

Now a hospital, that's a different matter.  My sister is a nurse, and whenever patient visitors would park in the nurses' lot, they'd cheerfully park behind the visitor, forcing them to stick around for the whole 12-hour shift.  The visitors learned to not do that.  Do what you want anywhere else, but never, NEVER p*** off a nurse!