As municipalities across North America take bold strides to eliminate minimum parking requirements for new residential developments, Barrie is taking baby steps.
The city’s current zoning bylaw, dating back 13 years, requires one-and-a-half parking spaces for each residential dwelling unit in most of the city and one parking space per dwelling unit in the downtown or mixed-use areas.
Of course, city council can, and has, allowed less parking on a case-by-case basis.
Barrie is in the process of bringing in a new zoning bylaw that proposes to divide the city into five “parking districts,” with different parking requirements for each one. One covers employment-area parking while the other four are for land that contains residential units.
They are:
- Major transit station areas: The city has two, around both GO Transit stations. There would be no minimum parking standards for developments in these areas
- Urban growth centre: For the downtown and Bradford Street area, new developments would have to provide 0.6 parking spaces for each dwelling unit. So, a 100-unit apartment building would require 60 spaces
- Strategic growth areas/intensification corridors: This includes Bayfield Street, Essa Road, Yonge Street and much of Dunlop Street outside of the downtown. New developments would have to provide 0.7 parking spaces per unit. So, a 100-unit apartment building would require 70 parking spaces
- All other city land: For most of the residential land in the city outside of the other categories, the new zoning bylaw requires one parking space for each dwelling unit. This would include the vast majority of Barrie neighbourhoods.
There are also visitor parking requirements, such as one space for every 100 units for apartments in the downtown and intensification corridors.
It’s a big change for Barrie, but far behind what other municipalities in Canada and around the world are doing.
Edmonton was the first major Canadian city to drop minimum parking requirements entirely for both residential and business developments, doing so in 2020.
Toronto, Regina and Vancouver were among the cities to follow, with Montreal and Ottawa now planning to do so as well.
More than 50 cities in the United States, from Alaska to Florida, have no parking minimums.
The call to eliminate parking minimums, interestingly enough, is coming from all sides of the political spectrum, from the very conservative Fraser Institute to groups on the left fighting to reduce car dependency.
The only opposition usually comes from homeowners who fear the spillover of drivers parking on their residential streets.
Lowering housing costs is the main driver behind the move to eliminate minimum parking standards. Depending on how the parking is provided — on the surface, underground or in a parking garage — each stall can cost tens of thousands of dollars, which is added directly onto the price of a unit.
Buffalo, N.Y., the first large North American city to drop parking minimums seven years ago, experienced a housing boom, especially in smaller infill projects and office conversions.
Other reasons for eliminating minimum parking standards include encouraging the use of public transit or creating more units in the place that would have been required for parking. Community spaces people can actually enjoy can also be created in the “dead zones” where cars would have been parked.
As well, eliminating minimum parking requirements means cutting a bit of that red tape developers often claim is holding up the construction of more housing, retailers or industry.
And, philosophically, shouldn’t developers and the people buying the residential units be the ones to decide how much parking is needed? If luxury housing is being offered, you can be sure the builder will include parking spaces because that is likely what the buyers want.
Except for a couple of areas around major transit stations, Barrie is not proposing to eliminate parking standards. I’m not clear on why Barrie is moving so cautiously. Could it be fear of public backlash?
There were certainly a lot of social-media comments earlier this summer against two 45-storey buildings on Bradford Street that proposed 364 parking spaces for the 912 residential units, mostly fears from nearby residents about where people would park.
But cities such as Edmonton have reported no problems and many benefits since dropping minimum parking standards. There’s no reason to think Barrie would be any different.
