Tag: Lots

Visitor Lots, Fire Lanes, and Towing

Beginning this week, our towing company will begin policing the visitor lots for inoperable vehicle, vehicles with expired registration or inspections,  vehicles with flat tires, and any other vehicle which violates our Parking Rules.  These Parking rules are available from the “Governing Documents” link in the menu above.  Each visitor lot is clearly posted indicating that we do not allow expired tags or inspections, so you cannot say you are unaware of this rule.

We have also had a large number of people parking in the clearly marked Fire Lanes, and who apparently believe that putting on the emergency flashers will prevent them from being towed; this is not the case. Unless you are an official emergency vehicle, you cannot park in the Fire Lanes, period.  We have advised the towing company to allow 10 minutes for you to unload groceries or help someone inside, simply as a courtesy.

Just so we are clear, this is what the Code says regarding all Fire Lanes:


Sec. 12-22. – Obstructions; regulations.

(1) The owner or person in control of property upon which a fire lane exists shall cause any motor vehicle other than an authorized emergency vehicle that is parked in a fire lane to be removed in accordance with Vernon’s Annotated Texas Statutes, Article 6701g—1.

(2) No person shall park, stop or leave standing any non-emergency vehicle, either attended or unattended, within any portion of the fire lane.

(3) No person shall permanently place any object of any kind in, on, across or over a fire lane in such a manner as to obstruct the free passage of fire apparatus over a fire lane. Fire lanes may be temporarily obstructed with specific written permission of the fire chief or his designee.

(4) Any vehicle found parked or standing in any designated fire lane shall be subject to citation and/or impoundment, or both, by any peace officer of the city, or subject to removal as authorized by law.

(5) For purposes of this subsection, a “non-emergency vehicle” shall mean a vehicle of any type other than the following:

a. Vehicles assigned to the fire department that are engaged in emergency activities.

b. Police department or other law enforcement vehicles on official business.

c. Ambulance vehicles on emergency calls.


Excalibur Towing will be patrolling our subdivision periodically and will be looking for violators in our visitor lots/fire lanes. If your vehicle is towed, it costs about $250 to get it back, excluding storage or other fees.

(NOTE) Excalibur will not tow expired or inoperable vehicles from under your carport; only the City of GP can do that, after proper notice.

Our rules do not allow inoperable cars under carports. Warning letters will be issued and possible fines imposed upon owners who have inoperable vehicles under their carports.

 

Excalibur Towing

We signed with Dave’s Hiway Wrecker back in June of 2014.  As a result of their City contract, slow response times and other issues, we decided to terminate the service agreement we had with them effective today, January 25th. We went back with Excalibur Towing, a company the Association had used from 2009 until 2014.

The reason we stopped using Excalibur is that they were told by our former “Office Manager” that they had permission to go under carports to check for expired registration or inspections. Many of you may remember this fiasco, as mentioned by several homeowners at  a few Board meetings.  All carports are Private Property and only the City can tow from under a carport after giving proper notifications.  Overall, Excalibur did a really good job patrolling our subdivision and only due to unauthorized instructions by a former employee did things go wrong.

Over the next few days, Excalibur will be replacing all of the Tow company signs at all entrances and will begin patrols overnight and throughout the day. They have been given specific written instructions to never go under any carports, for any reason.

They will give 10-15 minutes for people loading or unloading while parked in the Fire Lanes to move their vehicles prior to towing them.  Excalibur will patrol the Visitor Parking lots and will enforce our 48 Hour time limits after tagging vehicles; removing these tags will not change anything, they take photos after tagging vehicles. Excalibur will immediately tow vehicles that are parked in our Visitor lots that have expired tags or inspections stickers.

Signs has been recently updated to assure that both visitors and residents are aware of the time limits and other restrictions we have on our Visitor lots.