'Make good' on promise for parking for Canada's spy agencies: councillor

Coun. Tim Tierneyis urging the federal government to "make good" on a promise to build more parking forthe headquarters of Canada's intelligence agencies asresidential streets in the east Ottawa neighbourhood are consistently clogged with vehicles.

• Ottawa women take on Canada's spy agencies over parking

On Friday afternoon, Tierney distributed parking regulation notices on theresidential streetsthat borderthe headquarters of theCanadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) highlighting safety concerns caused by vehicles violatingthe three-hour parking limit.

The vehicles "constantly parked" on Leigh Crescent, in particular, limit access to emergency vehicles, garbage trucks, snow plows and fire hydrants, he said. No parking signs will be installed on one side of the street inthe crescent in the coming weeks to curb the problem, he said.

Over the past year, theCity of Ottawa's bylaw department has issued 1,800 tickets on six residentialstreets in the neighbourhood of Carsons Grove near the intersection ofOgilvieRoad andBathgateDrive, according toTierney.

Residents have also complained that some people move their vehicles around during the work day to try to avoid tickets.

"Legally they might be entitled to do that but it prevents snow plows from coming in, cleaning the banks out, keeping the streets nice and wide and usable," Tierney said.

Byelection issue

Last spring, CBC Ottawa told the story of two retired nurses in the neighbourhood who patrolled the streets armed with chalk tooutline parked vehicles and mark down the time theyarrived in an effort to help out bylaw officers.

Tierneysaid the federal governmentwas supposed to build two parking towers on its own property for its employees but only built one.

With a federal by-election coming up forOttawa-Vanier, Tierney encouraged residents to attend debates to press candidates about their plans to "alleviate parking issues" in the neighbourhood.

"I want whoever is going to represent this area to make the commitment to the residents of Carson Grove that they're going to build an additional parking tower so people can park on their site and not on our local streets," Tierney said.

There is currently no federal representative for the riding, after the death of long-time Liberal MP Mauril Blanger.