Holy Family groundsperson and former chairman of the Parish Committee Murray Hyndman said the issue involving non-churchgoers had been going on for years.
"It’s getting really frustrating," Mr Hyndman said.
"We have a lot of elderly people that go to Mass who can’t get a park, meaning they have to park far away on Rata St or Kirimoko Cres ," he said.
Mr Hyndman recalled an incident last year when a parent entered the church during communion, loudly demanding someone to move their vehicle which was obstructing her vehicle. "We were pretty offended.
"She said she was going to get the vehicle towed away, I just said to her ‘go ahead because, it’s your vehicle that’ll be getting towed away’," Mr Hyndman said.
Recently Mr Hyndman has placed cones in front of the entryway to stop unwanted vehicles entering the private carpark before 9am but as soon as the cones are moved, cars enter.
The Holy Family Church and School’s private accessway off Aubrey Road was private land, owned and maintained by the Diocese of Dunedin, Mr Hyndman said.
Mr Hyndman said on Sundays it was constantly filled with cars participating in junior football tournaments across the road from the church at Kelly’s Flat.
Mr Hyndman took the matter to a community board meeting where he was told the council did not interfere with private land matters.
Mr Hyndman said signs were installed to make people aware of the situation but it made no difference.
"We are now at the situation where we will do what the sign says and have to remove vehicles, but we don’t want to be like that.
"If a vehicle does get towed I think it will go around the soccer community pretty fast," he said.
A Wānaka Football Club spokesperson said the club had regularly reminded players’ families not to park in the Holy Family carpark over the years.
"On a typical Sunday over 200 Wānaka-based junior players take part in weekly fixtures and on two to three occasions throughout the year we host larger events that draw over 300 Wānaka players alongside approximately 300 visiting players from Alexandra, Cromwell, and Queenstown," the spokesperson said.
Kelly’s Flat has carparking spaces for about 30 vehicles.
"Kelly’s flat has limited parking relative to the volume of traffic our events attract, and a significant proportion of attendees are out-of-town visitors who are less familiar with the area and are less likely to have seen our requests not to park at Holy Family.
"We are also not aware of any ‘private parking’ signage at the Holy Family carpark, which likely means many visiting families park there in good faith, unaware it is private property," the spokesperson said.
