On-street parking in a narrow Deception Bay street means some residents’ bins weren’t collected for weeks

Aidan Templeton moved into his duplex north of Brisbane about a month ago, but his rubbish has been collected just once.

His recycling has never been picked up and it’s piled high outside his home.

When rubbish first wasn’t collected, Mr Templeton logged a missed bin report, but the following week the bins still weren’t emptied.

When he then contacted the City of Moreton Bay council, they told him they couldn’t access the street because of parked cars.

The council told him to move the bins further down the street but it didn’t help — it still wasn’t emptied. 

“This is what my neighbours have done as well and they’ve had the same issue,” Mr Templeton said.

Dead end for collection

Mr Templeton was also told the road’s dead end meant there wasn’t a viable turning circle for the trucks.

“Supposedly the driveways at the end of the street are actually reinforced so that the driveways themselves could be used as truck turnarounds,” Mr Templeton said.

“[But] isn’t the driveway part of the residents’ property? Why are they being converted into truck-turnarounds?”

Mr Templeton said when he questioned why the council was able to collect his general rubbish but not his recycling, he was told the truck was too big.

“They basically told us to pile up all the excess recycling waste we needed to get rid of on the side of the street … and they’ll come collect it by hand,” he said.

Mr Templeton said other residents were also fed up. 

“Some of the rubbish has literally been dumped, there was a pile of it dumped at the end of the street.

“It’s a terrible smell … actually, right now I’ve got nowhere to put my excess recycling, so it’s piled up on the side of my alley.”

Driveways used for turnarounds 

According to planning documents submitted to the council on behalf of the developer, The Gallery Group, the road meets their requirements for kerbside collection by a vehicles up to 10.3 metres. 

“Based on the assessment contained within this report, [we] see no traffic engineering reason why the relevant approvals should not be granted for the proposed development,” the report said.

Lyndall Bryant, a senior lecturer in property economics at Queensland University of Technology, said there were often teething problems with new developments.

Dr Bryant said the development’s plans had thought out rubbish collection.

It involved using residents’ driveways for the trucks to turn around, creating easements on the properties.

The problem is, the residents may not be aware of the plan.

“They might get upset if the truck reverses up the driveway, they might have their cars parked in the driveway on waste collection day,” Dr Bryant said.

“If an owner goes and rents that property, the tenant may never have had that communicated to them.”

Dr Bryant also said it wasn’t uncommon to see narrower streets in new developments, however, it’s not taking into account street parking.

Development plans show trucks would use the driveway to turnaround “temporarily” in instances where there are dead ends, but Dr Bryant said it’s often not known when the block next door is developed to finish off the street — that could take 10 years.

“If you’ve got grown children living at home, then there could be 160 cars potentially in that one development,” she said. 

“These narrow streets can get clogged up. And you can see the consequence of that is that we can’t have waste collection services.”

A spokesperson for the City of Moreton Bay council said services were carried out every Friday in April in the area, “but not to all properties due to cars parked in the turnaround easement”.

Furthermore, the council spokesperson said there had not been enough signs to warn people not to park on the driveway “easements” used for turning around on bin days.

“If there are access issues, typically the driver will service as many as they can, which is usually the southern side of the street, before they reverse out of the street. This can leave the northern side unserviced,” the spokesperson said.

“Our contractor will, however, typically return to the street on the same day or the next couple of consecutive days to re-attempt service. However, this is no guarantee of service as the turnaround area may still be blocked by parked cars.”

Banning ‘bin day’ parking

The council said signs went up and letters were recently issued to residents requesting the streets be kept clear on bin days.

“In addition to having the signage recently installed, council’s Local Laws team have visited the area to issue warning notices, not infringement notices, to support the installation of the new signage,” the spokesperson said.

Most of the properties on the street are duplexes and not every property has a garage or a driveway — Mr Templeton is one of those residents without a car space.

“Half of the residents have to park on the street,” he said.

Mr Templeton said he thinks a better solution would be to have residents move their bins to a designated area for collection. 

“Rather than waste all these resources, restrict parking, infringement notices, can’t we just have a designated pick-up spot. It’s not a big street.”

The Gallery Group has been contacted for comment.

SOURCE: ABCNEWS