A tidal wave of complaints from residents and businesses has led the city’s transportation committee to unanimously rethink a controversial parking plan set out in the 2008 budget.
On Wednesday, the committee voted to abandon plans to enforce parking rates on Sundays. It also said council should extend paid parking hours to 7 p.m. instead of 9 p.m., Monday to Saturday.
The councillors also recommended to increase parking rates to $3 per hour, effective March 1, and to raise them once again in October to $3.25.
They also suggested installing new Pay and Display parking ticket machines across the city and implement paid parking in Wellington, Beechwood and Old Ottawa South areas.
About 40 people representing various businesses and institutions appeared before the committee to protest, among other things, the budget’s proposal to charge for parking in commercial areas between 8 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. on Sunday.
"We should have done this in December," Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Jacques Legendre said.
Businesses and residents say they’re worried increased parking rates will discourage people from shopping downtown and in Centretown and that the extension of enforceable paid parking hours will hinder the area’s commerce and activity on evenings and weekends.
Moreover, they say it’s discriminatory the extended parking hours will only take effect downtown and in other commercial zones instead of city-wide.
Jasna Jennings, executive director of the ByWard Market BIA, says her online petition against the parking regulations has more than 5,000 signatures.
“Ottawa is my hometown and I have never seen this city so upset,” she said. She and others criticized council’s actions, calling the new parking regulations a hasty “cash grab” expected to make the city $4.2 million in revenue.
“This decision was made really quickly and with no consultation,” Jennings said. She added that the expense of installing Pay and Display machines, which the transportation committee projects will cost around $6.5 million, means the city can’t expect to make any money on the new parking regulations.
“An expense is an expense and (you cannot) claim revenue on the same line,” she said. “The whole city is saying, ‘Scrap this. Find your $4 million elsewhere.’”
Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes said a 0.4 per cent tax increase might be necessary to compensate for lost revenue if council decides to abandon its parking scheme.
Jennings and other opponents of the parking regulations asked the city to create an advisory committee to monitor parking on an ongoing basis and to update the city’s parking management strategy, which has been in use since 1994.
The city has met ongoing opposition to its new parking regulations since the 2008 budget was approved in December 2007, eventually prompting council to postpone implementation of any new parking rules from Feb. 1 until March 1.
City councillors say they’ve been inundated with complaints from their constituents since last year. Kitchissippi Ward Coun. Christine Leadman says she received 11,000 emails, calls and faxes regarding the issue from her constituency alone.
Rev. Barbara Maynard, of St. Luke’s Anglican Church says she’s concerned the new parking regulations will make her church less desirable to parishioners who commute.
“Many of our parishioners come from as far as Orleans or Stittsville,” she said. “With the parking fees going up and the extension of hours into the evenings, it will cost each of our choir members $18 a week in parking to attend rehearsals.”
Legendre admitted the city failed to think about churches when it approved the parking regulations.
“Any impact on downtown churches was originally not considered at all. For that shortcoming, I apologize to you and to others,” Legendre said.
Shannon Lee Mannion of Concerned Citizens of Centretown said the parking changes also have a negative impact on residents like her who live on side streets in Centretown and downtown.
“We’re going to see an increase in parking poaching,” she said. “I’m at Bank and Florence . . . instead of paying for a parking meter, people are just going to park in my driveway.”
Although many protestors said the extension of paid parking hours will require people to keep running out to their parking meters to plug in more money, Bay Ward Coun. Alex Cullen said that concern is a “myth,” since Pay and Display machines print tickets.
The transportation committee also recommended council develop a city-wide parking study to examine the feasibility of having on-street parking rates vary according to time of day.
The committee’s recommendations will be presented to city council on Feb. 13.