Thread by @adamadonaldson

Starting soon, a council workshop about parking bylaws. guelphpolitico.ca/2021/04/02/cit…

Mayor Guthrie has called the meeting to order, and here's the official title of tonight's business: Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw Review: Proposed Parking Regulation Workshop, 2021-85.

Krista Walkey, General Manager of Planning and Building Services, will begin with some opening remarks. The Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw is presently in phase #3, and we're on track to get a draft later this year.

Walkey reminds that its been 25 years since the zoning bylaw was last updated. The goal is to grow more efficiency, direct density, and promote more walking and transit use. Parking can be connected to all pillars of the Strat Plan, she notes.

Mark your calendars the draft Transportation Master Plan will be coming to the May 3 Committee of the Whole meeting.

Glenn Pothier, tonight's facilitator, is introduced.

Pothier says this is a chance for council to "add their parking aspirations" and give feedback about the development of this part of the plan.

In case this needs to be explicitly understood, nothing is going to be voted on tonight, this is just a venue for discussion and feedback.

To begin with:

What are other municipalities doing about parking right now?

Fun fact: Unbundled parking is not usually handled by zoning, but is more a matter of site planning.

Guelph's own standards paper about parking include a review of off-street parking demands, and best practices from others municipalities, but it did not tackle the topic of on-street parking.

In a previous workshop on the subject, consultants heard from the community about proposed parking rates, bike parking, driveway widths, a mix of parking rates, and the impact of parking regs on affordable housing.

Before we move to the next part, there are a few questions from council.

Guthrie asks why on-street parking was not part of the work being done? Walkey says it wasn't part of the original proposal because this was about zoning, because on-street parking has nothing to do with zoning.

Cllr Allt asks Walkey to comment on parking maximums, which were initiated when she worker in Waterloo Region. She says she can point council to the discussion paper that recommendation grew from.

Cllr Gordon asks about the co-relation between car stock and parking rates. Consultant Peter Richards says parking demand is lower in places with high frequency transit and walkable communities.

Cllr O'Rourke asks if Guelph is using the right comparators given that places like Waterloo have an LRT. Richards says the comparators were chosen based on the ones that recently remixed their bylaws.

O'Rourke lists off her other questions: What's the pandemic impact on right share? Is it more likely more people are going to EV before giving up their car for transit? The consultants will look at getting those answers, perhaps offline.

O'Rourke asks how the streets were chosen for the case studies. Richards says the recommendations came from staff, and they were chosen by a number of factors including access.

The comparator cities used (as asked by Cllr Gibson):
Burlington, Kitchener, Oakville St. Catharines, and Waterloo.

Gibson notes that Guelph is one of the more smaller communities on that list. Richards notes post-secondary institutions as another commonality.

Now the consultants are asking councillors what they think the big questions are that need answered. Cllr Goller begins by asking what comes first: improving transit, or reducing the number of parking spots?

Gibson asks what else needs to be known about parking in Guelph, especially how the family home has changed in the last few years. First time homebuyers are looking at $600k for townhouses, and that's a context that's being lost.

Guthrie asks if we've considered that on-demand transit will increase use, and how will all-way, two-way GO trains affect parking downtown once that gets going in 2025?

Guthrie adds that he would also like to know how much money that the City has spent on different transportation plans over the years, and how that's impacted the modal split?

Allt says he concerns about comparing apples to oranges because housing is different around the city depending on the age of the area and other factors. Doesn't want to look for one-size fits all.

O'Rourke says she's also concerned treating all neighbourhoods the same. Some places in the south end are seeing a lot of spill over issues. If the bylaw is too restrictive early on, it could make matter worse.

Cllr Caron asks if there are other municipalities more neighbourhood-based zoning recommendation? She adds that she doesn't want the parking review to be a matter of pitting one ward against the other.

Cllr Downer asks balancing provincial requirements and local bylaw needs, especially on accessory apartments.

Pothier now wants to guide council three questions to get to the bottom of council's aspirations for the new parking bylaws.

Goller says that secure bike parking should be required in all future multiresidential developments. Also wants to make sure that there's enough parking to prevent overflow into nearby neighbourhoods, and in some places parking mins are too low.

Allt says that whatever happens with parking an appropriate aesthetic must still be maintained lest we "pave over paradise and put up a parking lot."

Cllr Bell says he thinks that the purpose of this to prompt a quicker shift in the model split. There needs to be "more carrots and a few sticks" like better transit and bike parking. The goal should be to create an environment where it's easier for people not to own cars.

Hofland says the should would also like to see it acknowledged that "one-size does not fit all" when it comes to parking in all areas of the city.

Cllr MacKinnon says the parking changes should make it possible to get cars into driveways and off the streets.

Caron says that the new bylaw should include regulations for EV charging with the rapid increase in the number of electric vehicles on the road.

First group of recommendations:

Second group: New recommended parking rates...

Third group is driveway widths:

And the fourth and final group is for bicycle parking:

MacKinnon says the driveway widths need to be more generous. No matter the house, two cars need to be able to park side-by-side. If that means taking out some trees, or losing some grass, then that should be fine. It's a matter of affordability.

Caron says she can't disagree more with that statement. If we start designing the city around cars, we completely devalue what people like about Guelph. It's the opposite of everything we do in designing cities now.

Gibson says we're seeing a tale of two parallel but different cities. In Wards 3 and 5 there were almost no charges laid on driveway width, but there were lots of charges in Wards 1 and 4.

Gibson says the mitigation efforts seem to have worked for the last two years, but reinforces that these issues with driveway widths are not felt as pronouncedly in Wards 3 and 5.

Cllr Salisbury notes that he was talking to some people on one street about driveway width and protecting the streetscape and they said, "What streetscape?" because there were hardly any trees at all.

O'Rourke says the extra 1/2 metre makes a big difference if you have a wheelchair or a stroller. Should be making sure that the City is thinking about residents and how they can use their space.

O'Rourke also notes that there's nothing in the bylaw that stops people from paving their backyard. Also, no one is choosing to buy a vehicle in order to take up more space.

In a startling contrarian act, Downer says that she's quite pleased with the recommendations.

Bell says he likes the idea of a neighbourhood parking utility, because it helps get parking off the street.

Gibson notes that everyone pays the stormwater fees no matter how much parking they have, and that's an inequity in this policy.

Hofland says this process missed an opportunity to talk about on-street parking, which, again, was outside of the scope of this review.

MacKinnon asks if council is missing an opportunity to talk about unbundled parking and incorporate that into the bylaw, or perhaps leave it open to be added later.

Cllr Billings asks why bicycling parking has to be handled though bylaw, wouldn't site planning be better? It would give staff more flexibility.

Guthrie says the new area of the cities are "tight". When cars are forced on the street, it creates more problems with getting emergency vehicles through, or kids playing between cars.

On bike parking, Guthrie notes that there are bike parking facilities sitting empty and "rusting", so returns how much is being spent on modal spit that's going to waste.

Gibson says he wants to make sure that we're not building barriers, especially with new Canadians in generational homes. He says he's made a lot of new friends in his advocacy on this issue.

Next steps: The parking regulations will be developed for the first draft of the zoning bylaw, which will come forward this fall.

Guthrie thanks the consultants and the staff for all the good work that went into the workshop. Thanks the community for their input.

That's it for tonight's workshop, the comprehensive zoning bylaw review is