The City of Greater Sudbury is poised to loosen its parking requirements for multi-unit dwellings.
Earlier this week, the city’s planning committee, which is composed of five city councillors, unanimously approved a draft zoning bylaw amendment that would require multi-unit dwellings to include a minimum of one parking space per unit.
The current requirement is 1.5 parking spaces per unit, and the change would affect both Shopping Centre Commercial (C5) and Low Density Residential Two (R2-3) zones.
The bylaw amendment also proposes that more land qualify to accommodate minimum parking requirements in low-density residential zones. This includes the first six metres of front yard driveway depth, which does not currently factor into legally required parking space.
These changes are intended to assist in the creation of housing units in situations where people don’t have the land available for required parking under the current bylaw.
“Really, this is about providing more affordable housing,” senior planner Ed Landry explained after the meeting.
During the meeting, Ward 4 Coun. Geoff McCausland thanked Landry for bringing the recommendations forward, noting the change would open the opportunity for “a greater spectrum of housing in our community.”
In a report prepared for this week’s meeting, Landry cites several environmental impacts in the proposal, including that using less land and resources for parking encourages the use of public transportation and active transportation, which is defined as non-motorized.
“The proposed changes help the City get closer to its goals of transit mode share to 25 per cent and active mobility transportation mode share of 35 per cent by 2050,” he noted in the report.
“It also reinforces the goal of compact, complete communities by encouraging infill development, decreasing dwelling size through an increase in multi-family buildings, and increasing building type mix.”
Although the proposed changes are positive, Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury chair Naomi Grant said they’re not looking at the situation as ambitiously as they should.
“Some of the small changes are going in the right direction, but you’re still requiring one parking space per dwelling unit, so if you’ve got a walkable neighbourhood you’re still paving over a front or backyard unnecessarily, which isn’t great for a number of reasons,” she said, adding that eliminating parking minimums is “a gold standard for climate action.”
Taking her own house as an example, which is a short distance away from the university and has space that could be rented to a student without a vehicle, she said the parking requirement “would mean paving over a good chunk of my front yard, which right now is growing food and providing habitat for birds and storing stormwater.”
As such, she said the parking requirement serves as a disincentive to renting out units.
It makes more sense to do away with parking requirements altogether and have the private marketplace work itself out.
Prior to this week’s meeting, Liveable Sudbury sent out a tweet directed at the city.
“Eliminating parking minimums is the change to parking standards we need to best support more affordable housing options, sustainable transportation and compact complete communities,” the tweet read. “If Edmonton can do it, so can we.”
Linked to the tweet was an article by Canadian Architect about Edmonton’s elected officials voting in favour of removing minimum parking requirements from the city’s zoning bylaw starting July 2020.
This week’s planning committee approval means the draft zoning bylaw will be forwarded to city council for consideration at a future meeting as recommended for approval.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
