Can you claim a street parking spot after shovelling the snow? Here's what to know about your rights (and your neighbours')

Toronto residents, emerging from homes banked by snow after a record-breaking 56 centimetres fell in one day Sunday, have a new thing to complain about. But if they are upset that someone else has taken a street parking spot that they’ve shovelled out, they would be wise to take the advice of one of the city’s litigation lawyers: “The snow melts, but the neighbours stay.”

Clearing a space on the street does not give you the rights to it, says Laya Witty, a lawyer with Singer Kwitner, in an interview.

Toronto police Const. Cindy Chung confirms that “the law treats all public streets as shared resources regardless of individual labour.”

And if you’re thinking about leaving orange cones to mark your spot, Witty suggests you think again because “leaving an object to mark the space is effectively littering.” It’s considered an “unauthorized object” under the city’s street use bylaw, and trash in the eyes of garbage collectors.

Witty knows the risk all too well, having lived in cities where everyone parks on the street. “You dig out your parking space and then you put a milk crate or an old lawn chair or something in it, and people are supposed to respect each other’s space,” she says, adding it was common trick in her Boston neighbourhood. ( Boston allows so-called “space-savers” to be in place for 48 hours.”)

Chung concurs that Toronto neighbourhoods may have their own etiquette about shovelled-out spaces: “There may be more of a moral obligation and social etiquette between neighbours about this, and you would need to ask them.”

What happens during a major snowstorm in Toronto?

After a significant snowfall in Toronto, special rules apply on top of normal parking bylaws, especially if the city declares a “major snowstorm condition” or posts temporary snow-removal signs.

Drivers need to avoid parking where temporary orange “No Parking – Snow Removal” signs are posted, says the city. Crews will be removing the snow from these areas within 24 hours. Vehicles parked on streets with these temporary signs could be fined $100 or towed and impounded at the owner’s expense.

Residents wanting to check on snow removal progress can check online for updates at: toronto.ca/winter for regular updates. They can also monitor the city’s social media: X , Instagram or Facebook .

What are the parking rules in Toronto neighbourhoods?

Toronto car owners can get residential parking permits that enable them to park on the streets where they live. But those permits are not parking guarantees.

“The law is that you’re permitted to park on the street, not that you’re guaranteed a spot,” says Witty.

Have there been fights between neighbours that make it to the courts?

She says there haven’t been any court decisions about parking space disputes, but there have been cases involving neighbours suing and counter-suing neighbours. Sometimes those disputes involve allegations of property damage or harassment.

However, that kind of court battle “doesn’t end well,” Witty says. “The courts don’t have a lot of patience with people being bad neighbours.”

When lawyers are hired, it gets expensive, she notes, and “the courts tend to view it as a waste of time. Certainly, a waste of court resources. Can you imagine a court really being asked to rule on whether, you know, this person damaged that person’s garden? Or they were harassing each other by yelling across the street. Or one of them was taking pictures of the other?”

What is a common outcome of a neighbour vs. neighbour court battle?

It’s unlikely a court would be willing to order financial compensation, says Witty. Instead, the court is more likely to “order people to stay away from each other and not speak to each other. That’s all the court can do.”

So, she advises people to talk with their neighbours.

“And if that doesn’t go well, don’t dig out the space next time. There are definitely times when it could be much more worthwhile to park in a Green P or somewhere where you’re allowed to park overnight. Whatever you pay for parking is going to be cheaper than paying a lawyer. I promise you that.”

What should guide neighbours in their disputes?

“You know the golden rule, do unto others? I’m actually Jewish and in the Jewish tradition, the definition of that is: What would be painful to you or repugnant to you, don’t do to someone else.”

And while nobody wants somebody to steal their parking space that they dug out of the frozen slush, she says, “it’s not a matter of law. It’s a matter of moral obligations, social contract.”

She echoes the comment made by Chung that the streets are public resources. “There’s a finite number of resources. Take your share, but don’t take someone else’s.”

To illustrate the point, she recounts a memory of visiting her brother in New York City, where street parking is scarce.

“I parked six feet away from the driveway, which is what I would do in Toronto. You don’t even park at the edge of someone’s driveway. You park a few feet back. And his neighbour came out and yelled at me because I had put my minivan six feet away from the driveway. I was taking half of his space. So, it really is, you know, a matter of local usage.”

What is the benefit of not acting out of self-interest?

Aristotle puts forward a system of ethics that focuses on character over rules and outcomes, says Katharine O’Reilly, assistant professor of philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University.

“That doesn’t mean there is never room for anger – the situation might call for righteous indignation, and Aristotle doesn’t advise us to let injustices slide. But it does mean that our instincts should be checked against the kind of person we want to be, including the social and political impacts.”

And with all that “is going on in our society at present,” she says, we can ask ourselves, “what character will I cultivate in the situations of my daily life?”

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