Focus on on-street parking

Kelowna city council will get a crash course on on-street parking when it convenes Monday morning.

The workshop was arranged at the request of council earlier this year as council wrestled with policies and public concerns around both on and off street parking specifically related to new developments.

Council will use this workshop and a second around off-street parking to look at possible amendments to policies and regulations, including the cash-in-lieu program.

“The purpose of the parking workshops is to provide council with information to support decision-making consistent with council priorities including housing affordability and supply, transportation, climate and the economy,” staff indicated in the report.

“Parking management and proactive land use and mobility planning can be used to address several issues related to sustainable growth and urban development.”

The report focuses on how on-street parking is managed and concerns raised by the public.

Many of those concerns centre around the “lack of expected parking” and “anticipated traffic congestion” related to the development of new multi-family projects.

“There is often an expectation that new development should resolve perceived or real on-street parking shortages, or at least not exacerbate any existing issues.”

Across the city, only 11 per cent of city streets have some form of parking management system.Through the parking management strategy, parking plans have been endorsed for downtown, South Pandosy and the hospital area.

Outside those areas, the city relies on neighbourhood petitions.

The present council on-street parking policy aims to:

• Improve availability of short-term parking spaces
• Continue to pay for itself so that general taxation is not impacted
• Offers customer service options for better customer interaction
• Works with institutions, business and developers
• Provides a balanced transportation network for residents

The report outlines the fact there is no such thing as “private street parking” in front of any residential home unless otherwise posted. In the absence of a posted time limit, on-street parking is subject to a 24-hour maximum, typically enforced on a complaint basis.

“A consequence of unrestricted free on-street parking is excessive use by some and lack of opportunity for others who need to share the same public space resource to periodically park their cars, including visitors and tradespeople servicing homes.”

The report suggests updates to the city’s on-street, off-street and payment-in lieu of parking policies along with other mobility choices could gradually decrease the dependency on vehicle usage and, in turn, on-street parking demand.

“The desired outcome is to proactively complete on-street parking management in more urban areas, resulting in a shift from residents’ complaints expressing opposition to new developments due to potential effects of on-street availability to more technical complaints based on hours of enforcement and permit availability”

The report points to the limited number of complaints about on-street parking issues by neighbours around the One Water Street project because on-street parking was being effectively managed.

“While parking challenges and complaints will never stop in a growing city, we can work towards improving the outcomes and expectations as additional mobility choices become available to more residents, in particular in the urban centres and the core area.”

Staff recommend a continued expansion of on-street parking management and amendments to off-street parking regulations to respond to neighbourhood concerns.