Ottawa Parking Bylaws - Page 2

rocketphish · #21 Posted **Jun 29, 2016, 11:45 AM**

Committee OKs plan to reduce parking for new buildings

Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: June 28, 2016 | Last Updated: June 28, 2016 2:07 PM EDT

Ottawa appears poised to eliminate the minimum number of parking spots required for most new small developments in the downtown core and near rapid transit stations.

City planners spent much of last year consulting on the proposal before it brought the formal recommendations to the planning committee on Tuesday, which gave its unanimous approval.

Existing parking requirements are squeezing neighbourhoods built before the Second World War by requiring parking based on 1960s standards. Parking requirements have also dictated architectural form, planners say.

“These rules are increasingly at odds with current realities and planning goals for the urban area where intensification, infill and redevelopment, walkability, and transit are priorities, and where transportation systems are focused on increasing use of sustainable modes and the rapid-transit network,” a staff report said.

The proposed requirement wouldn’t eliminate existing parking spaces, but it would mean not adding new ones for new small-scale development. It comes as the city is trying to encourage more residents to take transit, including the $2.1-billion Confederation LRT line set to open in 2018.

“Particular emphasis for development is placed on areas around major stations on the Light Rail Transit (LRT) system and along transit priority corridors to facilitate appropriate densities and maximize the efficiency of transit infrastructure,” the staff report says. “Facilitating the gradual and simultaneous intensification of both residential and non-residential uses in the urban area and in particular, the inner urban area, such that alternatives to driving become more practical and attractive over time, is a key goal.”

Here are the draft recommendations in a nutshell:

The inner urban area: Small-scale development, both residential and non-residential, would be exempt from minimum parking requirements. Where parking is required for non-residential uses, like retail, it would be reduced by half.
Mainstreet and urban mixed-use areas: Exemptions for parking spaces would be applicable to low-rise apartment buildings (under four storeys), apartments in mixed-use buildings, businesses under 5,500 square feet, grocery stores under 10,700 square feet and offices on or above the second storey.
Near selected rapid transit stations: Most of these areas are already exempt, but this would be expanded to the area between Bayview Station and Tunney’s Pasture, the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, and to centres outside the urban area including Baseline, Blair, Billings Bridge/Confederation Heights/Heron, Orléans Town Centre and certain lands around South Keys.
Near rapid transit stations outside of these areas: Parking rates on non-residential land would be reduced by 25 to 50 per cent.

The committee supported an amendment introduced by College Coun. Rick Chiarelli to exclude the Centrepointe area from the new rules due to community concerns about the adequacy of parking.

If the recommendations are approved by council on July 13, it will be the first major change to Ottawa parking requirements in more than 50 years — and it could spark a slow evolution in building form and urban lifestyle, said Alain Miguelez, one of the planners overseeing the proposal.

“We’re very, very thrilled,” he said.

The planning committee also endorsed a recommendation from the built-heritage subcommittee to approve an application to sever a large lot at the corner of Old Prospect and Lansdowne roads into two lots and build two homes, as well as an application to grant a heritage designation for the former Overbrook Public School at 149 King George St.

mpearson@postmedia.com
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http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...-new-buildings

rocketphish · #22 Posted **Jul 22, 2017, 5:51 PM**

City floats idea for six-hour parking maximum on unsigned streets

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citzen
Published on: July 22, 2017 | Last Updated: July 22, 2017 12:34 PM EDT

The three-hour parking limit on streets without posted hours could be doubled under a new city proposal.

City staff are collecting feedback on an idea to extend the parking limit to six hours during weekends and statutory holidays on streets that don’t have signs displaying the parking hours.

In Ottawa, the assumed maximum parking limit between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. is three hours on streets that don’t have the parking rules posted. Most residential streets outside the core neighbourhoods would fall into this category.

It’s common for the city’s traffic department to receive requests from councillors or residents to change the street parking rules, sometimes because of safety concerns. Council recently formalized a petition process for residents who want to change the parking rules in their communities.

The street parking rules in Ottawa are similar to other cities. According to the city, all major municipalities have parking rules for streets without posted parking hours. About half of the cities examined by staff use three hours as the maximum time limit.

(At the same time, it’s a bit easier to park on Ottawa streets. Staff learned Ottawa is unique in allowing overnight parking in the winter).

For now, the city is interested in the weekend and holiday parking limits on unsigned streets.

One of the reasons is because councillors flagged the three-hour parking restriction when staff asked them what bylaws should be reviewed during this term of council.

Staff heard four specific concerns raised by councillors that were documented in a 2015 report. The identities of the councillors who raised the concerns aren’t included in the report.

Councillors said many residents aren’t even aware of the three-hour parking limit on streets without posted parking rules. It becomes a problem when homeowners have limited parking on their own properties, they argued.

The three-hour limit should not apply on weekends because people like having company over “but are afraid” because of the restrictions, councillors told staff.

Councillors also suggested that the city should consider leniency on weekends and holidays “particularly to ensure that we do not prevent families from getting together.”

Another suggestion called for staff to consider the three-hour restriction in “the suburban context,” with one suggestion calling for the end of the three-hour limit on weekends only in communities outside the greenbelt.

Under the proposal floated by staff, vehicles could be allowed to park for six consecutive hours between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays.

The city is collecting feedback through a short survey until Aug. 22 before deciding whether to change the parking policy.

jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...signed-streets

rocketphish · #23 Posted **Sep 5, 2017, 5:15 PM**

Longer parking hours, bike box protection proposed in bylaw overhaul
There is a large degree of support for upping the ‘three-hour rule’ to six hours for parking on unsigned streets.

By: Kieran Delamont, Metro
Published on Mon Sep 04 2017

As part of a large-scale update to its traffic and parking bylaws, the city is planning on doing away with the so-called three-hour rule that governs weekend parking on unsigned streets.

Last month, the city asked residents to weigh in on the proposed change to the rule, which will see the three-hour parking maximum on unsigned roads bumped up to six hours between 7 p.m. on Friday and 7 a.m. on Monday. The verdict is in: down with the three-hour rule.

Over 72 per cent of the nearly 2,000 respondents supported getting rid of the rule. Add there is support to take the change even further: residents were given the opportunity to submit comments, with the most popular response being that the city ought to expand the new six-hour rule to weekdays as well. The demise of the three-hour rule on weekends is part of a larger effort to update traffic bylaws. Also Included in the proposed bylaw are changes addressing concerns about accessibility.

Road hockey, which had previously been made legal by a specific amendment by council, finally gets its due, and is protected in the updated bylaw. (Other sports, like soccer and football, are still forbidden on city streets, though.)

Similarly, a rule that set a 45-second stopping maximum for taxis dropping off passengers is being done away with. Cabs will now be allowed to stop for as long as it takes to load and unload passengers. Bike boxes — those green squares where cyclists are permitted to wait while turning — are also being written into the new bylaw, so that it will be a specific offence for motorists to impede a cyclist’s right of way while using cycling infrastructure.

http://www.metronews.ca/news/ottawa/...-overhaul.html

rocketphish · #24 Posted **Sep 7, 2017, 11:08 AM**

Committee votes to extend weekend parking limits on unsigned streets

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 6, 2017 | Last Updated: September 6, 2017 4:22 PM EDT

Motorists will get six hours of worry-free street parking on weekends if council ratifies a decision made by the transportation committee on Wednesday.

The committee voted in favour of extending the current three-hour maximum parking time on unsigned streets to six hours between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on weekends and holidays.

The change is expected to give relief to homeowners who are having visitors — for a birthday party or for Christmas dinner, for example — so they don’t have to move their vehicles every three hours in that 12-hour enforcement window.

Residents could still petition the city to have parking restrictions on their streets if the limits aren’t posted.

Troy Leeson, manager of parking enforcement, said the city only received 33 complaints on average each weekend in 2016 from people calling about cars parked for more than three hours on unsigned streets.

Leeson said he supports the proposed change to the six-hour limit, since weekend complaints largely relate to people parking on the road for multiple days.

“It’s about people that have gone Friday night and have parked their second or third vehicle on the road and don’t look at it again until Monday,” Leeson said.

The city anticipates the six-hour parking window will also reduce complaints from people whose days visiting family are ruined by parking fines.

Weekend parking enforcement isn’t as easy as it sounds.

When someone complains through 311 about a car parked for longer than three hours, the call centre sends the information to the bylaw dispatch and an officer will be sent to the location. The officer marks the vehicle, but the followup might not happen until the next day, simply because the officer’s shift will be over or the officer has a heavy workload. The officer who marks the car needs to be the same one who follows up.

There might be between eight and 13 parking enforcement officers working on a weekend.

With the proposed change to the six-hour parking limit, it’s likely that officers won’t be able to return until the next day to check cars they marked.

The city received a large public response during a consultation over the summer, with 1,971 people responding to an online survey and 72 per cent of them supporting the proposal to extend the maximum parking time on weekends and holidays. The five communities with the largest number of responses were Stittsville, Barrhaven, Orléans, Glebe/Ottawa South and Westboro/Wellington Village.

Most councillors voiced support for the six-hour limit, even if they know some residents want tighter parking restrictions.

“I do have some hard-nosers who are after more and more enforcement,” Gloucester-South Nepean Coun. Michael Qaqish said.

Council will consider the recommendation next Wednesday. If approved, the new six-hour parking rule will come into effect June 1, 2018.

jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...signed-streets

rocketphish · #25 Posted **Mar 10, 2019, 1:01 AM**

On-street parking rates under scrutiny by city

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 9, 2019

The City of Ottawa could reduce free on-street parking or raise rates if a study determines motorists should be paying more to park their vehicles in areas where there are pay machines.

Ottawa parking rules are under scrutiny because it has been 10 years since the city adopted the current municipal parking management strategy.

A patchwork of on-street parking rules, especially across central commercial areas, is under the microscope as the city attempts to update the parking strategy and change the way rates are set.

One of the larger issues is how the city charges for all transportation services.

On-street parking rates haven’t changed in Ottawa since 2008, yet OC Transpo fares increase each year. The city is approaching a time when it will be hungry to get people riding the $2.1-billion LRT system rather than driving their cars.

The city manages 3,966 on-street parking spaces, plus another 2,858 off-street spaces in surface lots and parking garages.

Many of the short-term on-street parking issues are centred in downtown commercial areas where there are fees.

Motorists must pay for on-street parking where there are pay-and-display machines between Monday and Friday until 5:30 p.m. Hourly rates range from $1.50 to $3 and the maximum rate is set by city council. The rules vary across the city on Saturdays, but parking is free on evenings and Sundays.

Scott Caldwell, a parking manager with the city, revealed to the transportation committee recently that the study would at least “start the conversation” on whether the city should continue providing free on-street parking on Sundays.

Caldwell also said the city was looking into “dynamic pricing,” where rates go up or down depending on how many parking spaces are occupied in an area.

Success for the city would mean keeping 75-80 per cent of on-street parking spaces occupied.

Consideration of dynamic pricing seemed to please Capital Coun. Shawn Menard, who cited the frozen parking rates as one reason why he voted against the 2019 transportation budget earlier this month.

The city is collecting public feedback about parking and rates through an online survey before putting together a report and recommendations for the transportation committee and council in June. The survey, which is available until Friday, asks people about their parking habits in areas known for fierce competition for on-street parking: ByWard Market, Glebe, Little Italy, Chinatown and Centretown.

The inconsistent parking rules, sometimes pitting one commercial area against another, have come up at city hall in the past.

However, changing parking rates isn’t easy for the city government under its current parking management policy.

The 2009 strategy endorsed the use of “local area parking studies” to determine if parking rates should be adjusted. However, on-street meter rates can only be adjusted if the ward councillor, BIA and community association agree on fee changes.

What the city does with parking revenue is also part of the ongoing study.

Council in 2009 decided that every nickel made through paid parking should be reinvested in parking programs.

The city is handcuffed when it comes to using parking revenue for non-parking things since provincial legislation governing municipalities demands a direct link between a fee and the cost of delivering the service.

Now, the city is looking to see if it could use the revenue for parking-related activities, such as creating more bike-parking spaces, for example.

The city could also toy with oversight of municipal parking by creating an arm’s-length agency responsible for setting rates and parking enforcement. The buck currently stops with city council, but, in options floated by the city, city hall could create a separate board of directors to oversee parking.

jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWIlling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...r-old-strategy

Lakeofthewood · #26 Posted **Mar 10, 2019, 3:12 PM**

About time. The fact that parking rates have stayed the same while transit rates have gone up every year just shows once again where this city's priorities lie

YOWetal · #27 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 10:59 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakeofthewood

About time. The fact that parking rates have stayed the same while transit rates have gone up every year just shows once again where this city's priorities lie

Not really a fair comparison. The cost of maintaining parking is very low and the current rates are very high which causes a lot of parking avoidance and makes it noncompetitive with private options.

Dynamic pricing would be great as would spending some of the money on multi level (multi-level to make them more convenient) affordable park and ride garages at the end stations of the LRT. In other words subsidize parking there at the expense of downtown parking.

Lakeofthewood · #28 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 1:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Not really a fair comparison. The cost of maintaining parking is very low and the current rates are very high which causes a lot of parking avoidance and makes it noncompetitive with private options.

Dynamic pricing would be great as would spending some of the money on multi level (multi-level to make them more convenient) affordable park and ride garages at the end stations of the LRT. In other words subsidize parking there at the expense of downtown parking.

I'd say it's not a fair comparison if parking rates had increased ever so slightly compared to transit rates, but given that it hasn't gone up at all, combined with the fact that they're only looking into changing it now, is rather ridiculous.

J.OT13 · #29 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 1:13 PM**

Street parking downtown is very cheap. Much cheaper than private (or even public) lots. On-street rates downtown could nearly double and it wouldn't seem all that expensive compared to other options.

Once Stage 2 is up and running, I think we should start charging for parking in Wellington West and Westboro. It never was fair that those two neighborhoods had free on-street parking while Bank, Elgin, and the Market have had paid-parking for decades.

Multi-modal · #30 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 1:22 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Not really a fair comparison. The cost of maintaining parking is very low and the current rates are very high which causes a lot of parking avoidance and makes it noncompetitive with private options.

Dynamic pricing would be great as would spending some of the money on multi level (multi-level to make them more convenient) affordable park and ride garages at the end stations of the LRT. In other words subsidize parking there at the expense of downtown parking.

If people are avoiding using parking even at the low price of $1.50-3.00 per hour, then it seems like the space would be better used as landscaping.

But I don't think that is the case, in many locations parking is becoming over-utilized (over 75-80% utilization causing people to circle the block looking for parking). For an example, see this quote from the 2017 Kitchissippi Parking Strategy:

Quote:

On Richmond west of Tweedsmuir, demand for parking is very high:

The busiest times are weekday at midday, weekday evenings and Saturday mornings. At all these times, occupancy is over ‘practical capacity’ (85%).
During the week at noon, two-thirds of all blocks are above practical capacity, with some blocks exceeding full capacity (i.e. vehicles are parking illegally).
Peak utilization (between 10:00am and 3:00pm) has increased from 65% in 1997 to 89% in 2014. Over the two year span from 2012 to 2014, peak utilization rose from 84% to 89%.
One-third of vehicles are parked for longer than the 1-hour maximum.

Increasing the price of parking would absolutely improve parking availability along many of our main streets. I really don't know what / where you are comparing with to say our "current rates are high".

YOWetal · #31 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 2:29 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

If people are avoiding using parking even at the low price of $1.50-3.00 per hour, then it seems like the space would be better used as landscaping.

But I don't think that is the case, in many locations parking is becoming over-utilized (over 75-80% utilization causing people to circle the block looking for parking). For an example, see this quote from the 2017 Kitchissippi Parking Strategy:

Increasing the price of parking would absolutely improve parking availability along many of our main streets. I really don't know what / where you are comparing with to say our "current rates are high".

This Richmond St example was free parking.

Centretown is totally different but in the Market for example lots are generally cheaper than a meter and many meters are unused outside of peak hours in the winter. Even parking at the underground heated Rideau Centre is the same price as a meter with the advantage of not pre-paying. $9 to park from 12-3 seems excessive. At the same time $0 to park in meter from 6-9 also seems low. Also it is not the 1950s so I don't know why Sunday should have free parking.

Multi-modal · #32 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 3:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YOWetal

This Richmond St example was free parking.

Hmm, you're right. Bad example. I always assumed it was pay parking... it certainly seems like it should be.

My confusion was from that same report, there is a table that has a bad heading, which says "Daytime Peak Utilization (paid)".

Anyway, my point still stands. If the parking isn't being utilized with under 3.00 / hour fees, then just turn it into something more useful, like transit priority or landscaping with some loading zones.

zzptichka · #33 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 3:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocketphish

What the city does with parking revenue is also part of the ongoing study.

Council in 2009 decided that every nickel made through paid parking should be reinvested in parking programs.

The city is handcuffed when it comes to using parking revenue for non-parking things since provincial legislation governing municipalities demands a direct link between a fee and the cost of delivering the service.

This policy is so regressive and dumb. Who moved it in the first place?
They can't even use the money for park&ride parking.

J.OT13 · #34 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 4:39 PM**

Quote:

The city is collecting public feedback about parking and rates through an online survey before putting together a report and recommendations for the transportation committee and council in June. The survey, which is available until Friday, asks people about their parking habits in areas known for fierce competition for on-street parking: ByWard Market, Glebe, Little Italy, Chinatown and Centretown.

I hate when news articles about a public consultation survey or that quote a public consultation survey don't include links to said survey. CBC has an article on the Province looking to ban single-use plastics and a survey is apparently available. No link. Very frustrating.

Multi-modal · #35 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 5:07 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by zzptichka

They can't even use the money for park&ride parking.

Can't they? I thought some of the Councillors were pushing for this. Did staff come back and say it wasn't possible?

zzptichka · #36 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 8:31 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

Can't they? I thought some of the Councillors were pushing for this. Did staff come back and say it wasn't possible?

I remember there was a discussion on twitter and one of the councilors said they could not use it. Can't find it now.

CityTech · #37 Posted **Mar 11, 2019, 8:51 PM**

Parking in Westboro and West Wellington should absolutely be paid. There's no point maintaining free parking if it means it's nearly impossible to get a spot.

The city should start charging for parking out this way and use the revenue to finance the construction of a parking garage; the best place for it would be at the corner of Richmond & Tweedsmuir by expropriating the gas station. Long term, they should be aiming to eventually eliminate on-street parking in favour of garages.