Residents on Arundel St were furious to see the grass berm along their street turn into a dry, dusty mess in the summer and a muddy state in the winter.
Homeowner Catherine Pattison said going out her driveway could be extremely dangerous as cars parked on the berm blocked her vision of the approaching road.
"I have to put the nose out on to the road just to be able to see the traffic. Sometimes you can see over the cars but 4WDs can block your vision entirely. When you reverse out it can be a nightmare."
She said the parking issues created "quite a state of uproar" for people who lived on the street.
"They park on the berm, park on the side of the road and in driveways because there is nowhere else to park."
Arundel St resident Noel Andrews used to put up a temporary fence to prevent motorists from parking on the berm outside his house but "gave up" after his fence was repeatedly taken down. "There's no grass here any more but when I moved here seven years ago there used to be grass and it was beautiful and lush."
But not all residents had a problem with parking on the berm. Danielle Shin rented an apartment with her partner and frequently parked on the berm as they were only allocated one park at the rear of the complex.
"It doesn't bother us at all because we're doing it as well. In the morning it gets very busy though," she said.
Council transportation manager Martin Parkes said parking on Arundel St, Fourth Ave, Fifth Ave and Brown St was "chaotic" and plans were in place to restrict motorists from parking on the berm.
"We've got two carparking buildings and we've openly said they're under-utilised but the driving force behind this is to stop people inappropriately parking on residential streets. We get a lot of complaints from residents who live in these streets and when drivers ruin their front areas it destroys the immediate value of the street.
"We don't want to take away all the free parking, we want to manage it in a better way."
Mr Parkes said the proposed plan was to erect bollards to prevent motorists from parking in certain areas and install parking bays along troubled streets. Parking restrictions could be added to further prevent people from parking on berms and, if they did, they would be issued a parking ticket. The intention was for the parking bays to be free, he said.
Meanwhile parking problems are also evident behind Holy Trinity Church on Fourth Ave.
One motorist, who did not want to be named, said she had been slapped with a $40 parking ticket and other motorists weren't. She admitted she probably shouldn't have parked on the grass verge behind the church, underneath a sign that said "no parking behind curb", but was angered at the lack of consistency from parking wardens.
"[My colleagues] have parked there for about a year and they said no one has ever had a ticket. Then last week my car and the car next to me had tickets and none of the other cars did," she said.
"If they ticketed me, why don't they ticket the others?"
Mr Parkes said parking wardens visited the site "from time to time" but was not sure why only some motorists were ticketed. He suspected the other cars might have arrived after the ticketed vehicles.
"If the enforcement officer sees one car that's committing an offence and there's another five doing the same, he will ticket them all."
Mr Parkes said: "There's no such thing as free parking at the end of the day, someone has to pay."
It cost $4 million each year to operate and run Tauranga City Council. Mr Parkes said this money went to general operating costs, paying off debts and loans and paying for the city's two parking buildings.
The excess revenue generated last year was slightly lower than previous years as a result of changes in the city centre, he said. This included the introduction of free parking on the weekends and hourly rates on streets during the week.
Tauranga City Council manager of environmental compliance John Payne said restricted parking times were enforced to make sure there was a fairly high turnover of people who came into the city.
He said the parking rate in Tauranga was comparable to other cities in New Zealand.
