Can Your Yard House Unregistered Cars In Great Falls?
You or someone you know may have a car or a few cars in the front and back yard as a project car, a labor of love, or that rare car one finally finds and wants to keep.
Sometimes projects can pile up and no one knows if any of them will be up and running despite the word of the hobbyist saying "some day" while you look at a rust bucket where a garden could grow. Are all of those cars registered. Maybe, maybe not.
Many people say that having a yard full of junkers or clunkers can bring down the value of the rest of the neighborhood, and may look like an eyesore.
Is it against city ordinaces to have any or multiple cars on a property that are unregistered?
Looking around at some of the city ordinances around cascade county dictate against the collection of cars.
The City Commission of the City of Great Falls hereby makes, finds and declares that the accumulation and storage of abandoned, wrecked, dismantled, or inoperative vehicles, machinery, trailers, or parts thereof, on private or public property or illegally parked on private property is hereby found to create a condition tending to reduce the value of private property, to promote blight and deterioration, to invite plundering, to create fire hazards, to constitute an attractive nuisance creating a hazard to the health and safety of minors, to create a harbor for rodents and insects, and to be injurious to the health, safety and general welfare.
Even though I agree that cars are cool and hobbies are healthy, the city has a point in not allowing cars to build up. Bugs, varmints, weeds, and other things like old oils and fluids can present hazards for the public in a neighborhood.
They describe "Junk Cars" as ones without: a working engine, wheels and tires, an installed battery, or even used for just storage.
There are exceptions to the rules if one has a commercial business or subject to a recent collision.
-When such storage or parking is necessary to the operation of a lawfully conducted business or commercial enterprise on land which such business or enterprise is authorized by the city's zoning regulations
-A vehicle which was recently involved in a collision, duly documented by a timely report filed with the appropriate law enforcement agency or the state department of transportation, or its equivalent in a sister state, shall not be deemed a junk vehicle unless the owner/operator of said vehicle fails to repair the same within a reasonable period of time after said collision.
Usually the grace period is 10 days to remove the old cars, so one may want to do it themselves before outside sources intervene.
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