By Amber Lepage-Monette
Some city council members and citizens are appealing changes to parking rules downtown because they say it goes against the city’s official plan.
Last month city council approved changes to the rules surrounding downtown parking lots. Among the new bylaws is a plan to allow tandem parking in the downtown core for commercial parking lots, and underground and surface parking lots.
Tandem parking, or attendant parking is used in lots where cars are closely parked together and the attendants keep the car keys in case a car needs to be moved during the day.
It had previously been allowed only in limited areas, in surface parking lots, and for non-commercial parking.
David Powers, a planner with the City of Ottawa, says these more flexible rules surrounding parking would allow tandem parking anywhere in the downtown core, as long as it is not in residential areas. Powers says these changes could also mean an increase in the number of parking lots downtown.
Linda Hoad, a member of the Federation of Citizens’ Associations, filed an appeal as a private citizen against the amendments.
She agrees with Powers that the amendments would result in an increase in parking in the downtown core. But, she says, that isn’t what’s needed.
“We don’t need more parking, we need better organized parking,” she says.
Hoad says she appealed the amendments because they go against what both the city and the region have in their official plans.
“The official plans of the city and region state clearly that both of these bodies are going to discourage automobiles downtown and encourage public transit,” she says.
Hoad says tandem parking lots are only interested in long-term all-day parking.
She says more short-term parking is needed to help businesses downtown whose customers have no place to park for short periods of time.
Somerset city Coun. Elisabeth Arnold is also opposed to the amendments.
Arnold, a chairperson on the planning and economic development committee, says she’s concerned about parking lots coming into, or near, residential areas.
“(Tandem parking) is a sure-fire way to degrade a residential neighbourhood,” she says, adding the increased profitability of the lot decreases the chance of the property being sold and developed in the future.
Ravi Sharma, manager of Shamrock parking lots, says it’s all about supply and demand. Sharma says he is providing a service that commuters are demanding and he would like to see the appeals fail.
“It’s not only about our profit margin,” he says. “If there’s no parking, where are they going to put the cars?”
The appeals have temporarily halted any amendments to bylaws. A date has yet to be set to hear the appeals.