Calgarians have a deep, emotional relationship with street parking.
Those accessing inner-city streets are really feeling the pinch. Whether a street is two-hour parking or reserved for permitted cars only, every address can register for two visitor parking passes, plus three standard residential permits.
That’s a potential for five cars parked on the street per address.
If you have 50′ of frontage that might allow you to get three smaller cars parked in front of your house, where do your two visitors park?
Now, I know not every address will max out their parking permit allowance, but if that same 50-foot lot has two residences or four residences on it, then the geometry runs short pretty fast. The current policy allows for more street parking passes than there is linear footage of curb to park against.
Instead of solving the problem of access to public street parking, our last council ignored the housing and affordability task force’s recommendation to remove all residential parking minimums, and instead conjured up the idea that dictating what we can do on our private land through the zoning bylaw will help.
This is like using a hammer to tighten a screw; it is the wrong tool for the job. Like a hammer, placing unnecessary rules on private landowners is going to cause harm.
Enforcing land parcels to absorb car-sized storage units does not mean people will choose to use their garages instead of parking on the street.
I have neighbours who use their garages for all sorts of wonderful and creative things, like a backyard brewery, personal gyms, art studios, kids’ hideaways, a secret pub, workshops, or a place for the garage band to practice. My household is guilty of using our garage for seasonal storage.
If the bylaw didn’t allow a physical building around our private parking, we might see more people using their own land to store their private vehicles. Is telling people they can’t build garages the answer to solving the street parking problem in Calgary? I don’t think so.
How we use the space on our property should be up to us
I don’t like the idea of the city micromanaging how I use my property.
If I am not putting my neighbours in harm’s way, how I use my space should be up to me.
How the city chooses to manage the public street will likely influence what I choose to do with my private parcel, but I should be able to decide for myself if I want parking and how much.
Locations next to major transit likely have different needs than those in transit deserts. Blanket rules should allow people agency to make choices about how they want to live, spend their money, and use their property.
The federal government has recently said Calgary must allow four homes per lot by October to access Housing Affordability Funding. This is cash that Calgary can ill afford to lose.
Our new council should have the difficult conversation about street parking before they copy the last council’s mistakes and pass off the problem by pretending the zoning bylaw can fix street parking.
Housing people should not stop because placing rules in the public realm on parking cars is a difficult consensus to reach. We know the world over that placing the right price on curbside parking is what works in every other densely populated municipality. This is known as the Shoup Parking Theory: 1. Set the right price 2. Return the profits to the local area 3. Remove minimum parking requirements.
If Calgarians are not ready for that and want to go at this their own way, I would propose that to make housing less controversial, new addresses just not be able to apply for any parking permits. It wouldn’t be fair, but it would eliminate the stress on our streets that makes people come to council and argue against more homes.
Many Calgarians don’t drive; kids, those who are medically unable, those without money for a private vehicle, and those who are health-motivated. The added cost of mandated parking should not be a barrier to housing.
This city council should use the correct tool to fix the public street parking problem and stop imposing ideologies on landowners through a zoning bylaw.
Every new parking stall the city mandates on private land invites a new private car into your neighbourhood.
No community wants more traffic. Communities are not necessarily against more neighbours. More volunteers, more efficient services, more households to share the tax burden, more children at the playground, more patrons supporting local businesses, and more eyes looking out for one another is a positive addition to any location.
Let’s begin building a people-first city.
- Christie Page is an inner-city mom and a planning student
