Are Toronto’s newest communities turning into vertical subdivisions?
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Take Liberty Village, which markets itself as hip and urban. No one’s fooled – the village centre is actually some one-?storey plazas surrounded by acres of parking, creating lots of traffic but little street life. What many don’t know is that it’s the law.
Liberty Village developer Walter Jensen of the CanAlfa Group says he’d hoped to create a complete community with grocery stores and services within walking distance. He blames the suburbanization of the site on an obscure zoning bylaw requiring a large number of parking spaces.
Over 50 years ago, at the height of the auto age, Toronto municipalities devised policies to produce cheap and abundant parking. Bylaws were passed requiring minimum numbers of parking spaces for different kinds of buildings and uses.
Little wonder that today Toronto has millions of parking spaces, many of them free. Even where they’re not, parking fees don’t begin to pay the real cost of the space they take up, given the high price of land. And they certainly don’t pay for road maintenance.
On top of that, market value -based assessment means parking lots pay just a fraction of property taxes that buildings pay. How come we give a break to spots for cars but not to living spaces?
But now, in the process of harmonizing bylaws throughout the amalgamated city, T.O. is ready to revise its parking policies. On June 2, the city kicked off a series of zoning open houses.
Still, it’s not clear whether there will be much improvement. The meetings will likely focus on other hot-button zoning concerns like building heights. And the commissioned report by consultants IBI isn’t reassuring.
True, the report argues for reducing grocery store parking spots from 3.5 to 2.5 per 100 square metres of store. But on the other hand, it proposes new requirements for general retail and banks – 1.5 and 2.25 spots respectively – where there were none before in the old Toronto. They even recommend making visitor parking free citywide.
The report also makes the assumption that it’s the city’s job to ensure drivers have few problems parking their vehicles, and that parking requirements should exist to prevent competition for scarce spots. “Urban residents dislike parking overflow from other uses into their neighbourhoods,” it says.
Yes, but should developers be asked to create spaces just to keep a surplus of underpriced on-?street parking?
Even long-?term parking permits only cost about $12 a month for a first vehicle – about a penny an hour. And in the downtown core, where land costs soar, the Toronto Parking Authority’s top rate is $3.50 an hour. In Liberty Village, there’s no sign proclaiming “free parking courtesy of the city of Toronto,” but it is nevertheless gratis for three hours.
“There’s a sort of belief that people have a right to park a car somewhere,” says Councillor Adam Vaughan. “I have a problem with free parking.”
Unfortunately, bargain parking is not up for debate. While Vaughan says requirements for parking spaces in new developments are too high, he sees a need for some regulation. Condos have been replacing surface lots in his ward, creating a parking shortage for warehouse offices and a surplus for residents.
In parts of New York City that lack parking requirements, new buildings usually offer no parking or provide underground spaces available to all – at a price. Residents can choose between paying for vehicle storage and cheaper transportation alternatives.
Vaughan says it costs roughly 30 grand to construct a parking spot underground and points to a new project at 40 University whose developer wants no parking. “City staff are saying we can’t support this, [but] it’s right on the subway line.”
A 2009 affordable housing study by the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute found parking requirements add 10 to 20 per cent to housing costs. Priorities are twisted when we jack up the cost of housing people to subsidize housing for cars.
If the city stops requiring builders to provide spots, the cost of a rental unit for car-?free households would fall $100 for a unit presently renting for $800 a month, and a condo unit would cost about $30,000 less to buy. Current regulations also penalize industrial spaces that go residential. Parking either has to be constructed under the building or on adjacent land, resulting in skyrocketing housing prices. Historic buildings are often levelled for lack of car space (48 Abell is currently on the to-be-demolished list.)
While Toronto walks the talk by narrowing Lansdowne and Jarvis, its blind spot on parking is filling our streets with traffic. London and a growing number of British and European cities have traded minimum parking spaces per building for meaningful maximums citywide, finally putting laws in line with goals.
The sad fact is, forcing builders and retailers to provide more parking than the market lowers the cost of auto ownership and locks us into a car-?addled future.
It’s time for drivers to pay the real cost of parking their four wheels.
news@nowtoronto.com
