Federal Administrative Court: Residents can take action against surface parking

Residents of a residential street can take action against blocked sidewalks. In principle, this is the result of a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court. The court ruled in the highest instance on a request by residents of one-way streets in Bremen to take action against parking on pavements, which had originally been rejected by the road authority. After several instances, the residents have now prevailed and the authority must now deal with their requests again. The traffic club VCD commented on the ruling that local authorities could no longer turn a blind eye to sidewalk parking.

According to the Federal Administrative Court, the plaintiffs at least have a "spatially limited claim against the road traffic authority for a discretionary decision to intervene against illegal sidewalk parking", as the court put it. This applies if the intended use of the sidewalk is significantly impaired, namely for sections of the complainant's "own" side of the road.

Owners and residents of houses in three one-way streets in Bremen, whose carriageways are between 5.00 m and 5.50 m wide, with sidewalks between 1.75 m and 2.00 m wide on both sides, had filed a lawsuit against the Bremen road authorities. For years, there has been almost continuous parking on the sidewalks on both sides of the road. There are no traffic signs regulating stopping and parking. These are also not necessary, as sidewalk parking is prohibited anyway.

Proceedings have been ongoing since 2019

In 2019, the road authority rejected the residents' application to take action against parking there. The Bremen Administrative Court then obliged them to reassess the plaintiffs. Paragraph 12, sections 4 and 4a of the Road Traffic Act, which generally prohibits sidewalk parking, not only serves the interests of the public, but also those of the residents specifically affected. As residents of streets in which parking on sidewalks is not only sporadic but permanent, the plaintiffs could, in principle, demand that the road traffic authority intervene.

The authority and the plaintiff appealed against this ruling. The Higher Administrative Court then ruled that the plaintiffs could not demand that the defendant immediately prevent regular parking. However, the plaintiffs could demand that their application for official intervention be decided without error of judgment. However, this had not happened, so the authority had to decide again, considering the legal opinion of the Higher Administrative Court. However, the authority does not have to intervene immediately in the affected streets, but can, for example, wait and see whether a concept for a city-wide approach and prioritization of particularly intensively affected streets is developed.

Individual entitlement to official intervention

There is an individual right to official intervention if the use of sidewalks is unreasonably impaired by illegal sidewalk parking, according to the High Administrative Court. In the present case, this was the case because the sidewalk remaining due to the parking was significantly less than 1.5 m wide over almost its entire length. This meant that it was no longer possible for pedestrians to meet.

Since, according to the findings, unauthorized sidewalk parking is widespread throughout the city, especially in inner-city locations, the authority should first identify the most congested areas, prioritize streets with particularly narrow remaining pavement widths and develop and implement a concept for a city-wide approach.

(anw)