Back to the drawing board

CITY COUNCIL: Myrtle Terrace owner withdraws request for less parking, will come up with a new plan

A plan to reduce the number of parking spaces at an apartment building in East City wasn’t discussed at City Hall on Monday night after all.

The owner of Myrtle Terrace says he has too many parking spots for tenants who don’t drive.

He was expected to ask councillors’ permission to cut in half the number of parking spaces as part of a larger renovation plan.

But that didn’t happen. About 30 minutes before the plan was to be presented to councillors on Monday, the building owner told city staff he’d changed his mind.

His new idea is apparently so different from the one he’d proposed that he and city staff will have to go back to the drawing board.

City councillors deferred the item with no discussion. It will be covered at a future planning meeting, instead.

Since there was no other item on the agenda, the meeting was over in about three minutes. That’s a record for this term of council.

Myrtle Terrace has 60 affordable apartments for seniors and it’s located in the former Marycrest Home for the Aged on St. Luke’s Ave. (next to the former St. Joseph’s Hospital).

There are 60 parking spots for 60 apartments. But the owner says that’s far too many: only 20 of those spaces are ever used.

He was proposing to reduce those parking spaces by 50%, leaving 30 parking spots for 60 apartments.

Meanwhile, there was also a plan to renovate.

To have 60 parking spaces in the first place, the ground floor of Myrtle Terrace has been converted into under-building parking.

The owner was thinking of closing in that under-building parking and putting nine new apartments there instead.

Because those nine apartments would be rented at market value, the owner was proposing 17 parking spaces to accommodate them.

The city’s rule is 1.75 parking spaces per apartment rented at market value. The rationale is that renters who can afford to pay more are also more likely to own a vehicle – or even two.

That would have brought the grand total to 47 parking spots for 69 apartments, but that plan is no longer on the table.

There was no indication Monday what the new plan might entail, and the owner didn’t speak to councillors about it.

He’ll be expected to propose something to city staff and staff will write a report to councillors with the details.

The earliest the plan can come back before city councillors would be sometime in early October.