Since the cost of providing parking can be significant, especially for developments with smaller units, I support the need for a review of parking regulations. A couple of years ago, Metro Vancouver did undertake a study and it is hopefully leading to some changes. However, many municipalities still insist on high minimum parking requirements, which seems odd when you consider our collective concern with Greenhouse Gases, road congestion and housing affordability.
I believe it is time for many municipalities to convert their minimum parking requirements to maximum requirements!
CKNW picked up on The Province story and I was pleased to discuss this further with Sean Leslie on Sunday afternoon. Here's Sam's story.
No car? No problem:
Vancouver preparing to zone for parking-free condo towers
Condo towers without parking stalls would be aimed
at young professionals who choose to live car-free
By Sam
Cooper, The Province March 20, 2014
Vancouver is moving toward zoning that would allow
condo towers to be built without parking stalls, planners say. The move would
allow developments similar to an existing condo in Toronto and a proposed one
in Calgary, in buildings pitched at young professionals who increasingly tend
to live car-free. Minimum parking stall requirements for condo developments
could be relaxed in downtown buildings and projects close to rapid transit
stations.
Photograph by: Stuart Davis , PNG
Vancouver
is moving toward zoning that would allow condo towers to be built without
parking stalls, planners say.
The move
would allow developments similar to an existing condo in Toronto and a proposed
one in Calgary, in buildings pitched at young professionals who increasingly
tend to live car-free.
Vancouver
has minimum parking requirements for residential buildings, but city staff are
“exploring (no-car condo) opportunities in line with what Calgary is looking
at,” a spokeswoman said Thursday.
The new Transportation
2040 plan adopted by council provides guidance to eliminate parking
requirements downtown and near rapid transit stations, but gives no timeline on
when the changes will be considered.
“I’d love
to see more parking-free buildings,” Brent Toderian, Vancouver’s former head
planner, told The Province.
“Where to
build them, though, is all about the neighbourhood. They wouldn’t work just
anywhere — they need walking, biking and transit to be inviting options.”
Tsur
Somerville, director of UBC’s Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate, said
that with Vancouver council’s “greenest-city” goals he would have expected the
parking minimums to be eliminated already.
“Certainly
evidence in the U.S. is that among millennials, car ownership and driver’s registration
is way down,” Somerville said.
“I think
there is a lot to suggest that there is a group of young people, that cars are
just not part of the lifestyle they are thinking of.”
Removing
underground parking can slice about $40,000 off the price of a unit, which
would help Vancouver tackle its housing affordability problem, Somerville said.
One risk
to building car-free condos is that units could be seen as more difficult to
resell. Investors who are interested in “liquidity” — the ability to rapidly sell
a unit — might not be as interested in a no-parking-stall unit, Somerville
said.
Michael
Geller, a Vancouver developer and architect, said developers increasingly are
seeing parking-stall and non-parking-stall buyers as distinct markets.
“Historically,
developers have always sold condos with parking spaces, but we are now starting
to sell the spaces separately,” he said.
“My line
for the last 20 years has been, we should take all our minimum standards for
parking, and turn that overnight into maximum standards.”
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