My June 10 comments to Council on Bylaw 482 - decoupling parking

Council recently considered a bylaw to remove all parking requirements from residential development. Just to be clear, decoupling means you could build a 30-unit apartment building and have no on-site parking. Like other Banffites, I commented at the public hearing on this bylaw. My comments are below:

I believe that we have a parking problem as well as a housing problem, and making one significantly worse in the hope that we might have a positive effect on the other is abdicating our responsibility to plan for our overall future as a community.

We are assuming that developers will build parking if it’s needed, rather than save money and maximize development. We are assuming that if they don’t, and parking turns out to be needed, the public realm will just absorb it, somehow.

These assumptions will lead to very different outcomes in different parts of town, depending on the parking spots available, whether the area is in the RPP restricted zone, whether area residents are short-term renters or long-term owners, and so on.

I think decoupling is not a good solution for Banff. I think the assumptions are flawed. However, if you decide you want to do this, I have a couple of suggestions for you to consider:

Instead of complete decoupling, how about allowing parking requirements to be varied up to 100%, but only after going through a review process that takes into account:
• The number of dwelling units
• The intended residents (rental housing for short-term staff vs owned condos for longterm residents)
• The parking supply in the neighbourhood where the development is proposed – in numbers of on-street spots available in that neighbourhood, not %age occupancy
• Whether the development is within the RPP zone
We have good information on average vehicle ownership depending on type of unit/type of resident, and apparently we have the ability to calculate parking availability. Yes, it would be work, but surely it’s better than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Or, if you really want to go with developer-driven parking space decisions, then let’s have a formula regarding resident parking permits for residents of such developments. If the developer and the development approving authority can imagine that no parking spaces are needed because the residents will not have cars, then certainly these non-cars will not need RPPs. If the developer builds only half of what would be normal for a building of that size, then perhaps half the residents get RPPs, and so on.

We are the densest community in Alberta. Additional density is more easily accepted in neighbourhoods if the neighbours can see that the impacts of the additional density are largely dealt with onsite. Spreading those impacts into the public realm is guaranteed to increase neighbourhood reaction.