By Cara Waters
A quiet side street next to St Kilda Cemetery is turning into a resting place of a different sort, with a growing number of caravans parked there.
When this masthead visited Alexandra Street in St Kilda East last week, there were 17 caravans along the street, taking up almost half the parking spots.
Residents (from left) Justin Halliday, Brian Murray and Rio Filgueira with caravans left in Alexandra Street, St Kilda East.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“It’s like a game of sardines,” City of Port Phillip Mayor Heather Cunsolo says. “Like, one person does it and then the others join in.”
Residents are unimpressed and say the caravans make it difficult for them to park their cars near their homes, and raise concerns about safety.
“People getting home late from work can’t get a park in their street, they might need to park one or two streets away, which is probably not safe for a lot of people,” resident Brian Murray says.
“[Caravan owners] don’t want to put them in industrial zones or pay for storage so they just put them in someone else’s street.”
Vans and caravans parked alongside the St Kilda cemetery on Friday. Credit: Joe Armao
Murray has lived in the area for 20 years and believes the influx of caravans are not owned by locals. “They drive up and drive away,” he says.
Caravan ownership boomed during the COVID pandemic, but private caravan storage costs around $1080 a year at sites close to Melbourne.
Port Phillip Mayor Heather Cunsolo.Credit: Simon Schluter
Another resident, who did not want to be named because she was concerned about the response from caravan owners, says the caravans are an eyesore and some have not moved for the two years she has lived in the street.
“It’s just very annoying because a lot of them are oversized,” she says. “These massive caravans just stay there for months and months at a time.”
She wants the council to tighten parking restrictions in the area to require permit parking only.
Cunsolo says there is not much the council can do to address residents’ concerns, but it is “trying to grapple” with the issue.
“Under the road rules, they are deemed to be like any other car,” she says. “If there’s not parking restrictions at this point, they’re considered legally parked if they are at a certain dimension.”
Cunsolo says there are lots of demands on parking spaces in the area.
Caravans are taking up street parking spaces along Alexandra Street.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“I don’t think we were expecting long-term storage as one of the uses,” she says.
A spokesman for the state government says registered towable vehicles, including caravans, campers, boats and trailers, are permitted to be parked on streets if the vehicle is under 7.5 metres in length and weighs less than 4.5 tonnes.
The spokesman says councils have the capacity to introduce requirements which would require owners to obtain a permit to park their towable vehicle on council land for a particular length of time.
Urban planner Dr David Mepham, the author of a book titled Rethinking Parking, says urban kerbs are a public space not really designed for long-term caravan storage.
“Councils have a responsibility to step up,” he says. “Councils regulate the kerb space. This is St Kilda, it is not out the back of Bourke, it is a busy dense urban environment with a lot of competition for kerb space, it is a finite resource that needs to be managed.”
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