04-27-2016, 04:57 PM
I fired off a small tweetstorm about this just now:
And the rest in non-tweet form:
Yesterday at the @citywaterloo Uptown Parking strategy meeting, staff mentioned cases of Northdale buildings running out of resident parking
i.e. A resident calls the city asking for a street parking exemption because their building has sold out of on site parking.
The first response staff give is "have you tried calling neighbouring buildings?"
Reasonable advice, but it points to a problem in Northdale: There is no Public Parking. Only private lots.
Cold-calling apartment buildings asking for parking passes is difficult. But in Northdale, right now that's the only option.
If we want to push parking minimums down, there needs to be visible, accessible supply to smooth out these local peaks and troughs.
No one wants to see surface lots, so @citywaterloo should consider giving incentives to developments that will incorporate public parking.
Basically, the City is afraid (terrified, almost) that parking demand in any single development will outstrip the on-site parking, leading to nuisance parking, or at least frazzled nerves. And there's still a culture around these parts that there Is A Place For My Car. There's a friction brewing in Northdale right now, because there's a really poor balance of parking supply, demand, and price. Since every development has somewhere between "plenty" and "kinda" enough parking, there are not enough customers to create enough incentive for any of them to operate a public market-rate lot. It leaves the excess parking supply scattered across dozens of sites each of which may or may not be on the after-market.
As I said, there needs to be some manner of encouraging a few developments to have enough parking to serve as an actual public garage. One that you can see driving down the street, and when you desperately need to put your car somewhere, is available... at a price.
What is a bedroom? Why are @citywaterloo staff so concerned? As usual, it comes down to parking. (1/8) https://t.co/Mrx17KbPyC
— Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) April 27, 2016
And the rest in non-tweet form:
Yesterday at the @citywaterloo Uptown Parking strategy meeting, staff mentioned cases of Northdale buildings running out of resident parking
i.e. A resident calls the city asking for a street parking exemption because their building has sold out of on site parking.
The first response staff give is "have you tried calling neighbouring buildings?"
Reasonable advice, but it points to a problem in Northdale: There is no Public Parking. Only private lots.
Cold-calling apartment buildings asking for parking passes is difficult. But in Northdale, right now that's the only option.
If we want to push parking minimums down, there needs to be visible, accessible supply to smooth out these local peaks and troughs.
No one wants to see surface lots, so @citywaterloo should consider giving incentives to developments that will incorporate public parking.
Basically, the City is afraid (terrified, almost) that parking demand in any single development will outstrip the on-site parking, leading to nuisance parking, or at least frazzled nerves. And there's still a culture around these parts that there Is A Place For My Car. There's a friction brewing in Northdale right now, because there's a really poor balance of parking supply, demand, and price. Since every development has somewhere between "plenty" and "kinda" enough parking, there are not enough customers to create enough incentive for any of them to operate a public market-rate lot. It leaves the excess parking supply scattered across dozens of sites each of which may or may not be on the after-market.
As I said, there needs to be some manner of encouraging a few developments to have enough parking to serve as an actual public garage. One that you can see driving down the street, and when you desperately need to put your car somewhere, is available... at a price.