Vehicle Abatement is a critical role that the City of San Jose plays in combating blight along our city streets. The vehicle abatement program tows abandoned vehicles and those that break the law by parking where they are not allowed to (or for parking there for too long).
Amidst the COVID pandemic, the City of San Jose halted abatement due to the shelter-in-place order issue in March of 2020. This order required people shelter in their homes (unless they were an essential employee), causing a large number of cars to be left on San Jose's streets and roads for much longer than the allowed 72 hour for any vehicle parked on city streets.
As of now, staff reviews all SJ311 reports but only abandoned vehicles that pose a health, safety or extreme blight concern are being investigated. Please include photos with your service request to help us evaluate the vehicle’s condition. Staff is proactively monitoring all city streets to remove these types vehicles even if they are unreported. Staff responds to vehicles that pose a health, safety or extreme blight concern within 7 business days. Vehicles that qualify are removed within 14 business days. Due to this backlog, at the present, there are over 11K reports of abandoned vehicles in District 10, with the city as a whole having over 100K reported abandoned vehicles.
When filing a report to the SJ311 app (or webservice), please be sure to include everything the app is asking for. The towing company needs to know what make, model, and license plate number. If the questions are not fully answered, the towing company is unable to complete the report to pick-up the abandoned vehicle.
For questions on the abandoned vehicle abatement program, please visit the SJ311 website (or download the app in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store): San José 311 (custhelp.com)
For status updates on the abatement policy, please email us at district10@sanjoseca.gov.