Yaletown BIA ‘really happy’ with city response to parking issues

The City of Vancouver and Yaletown businesses have found middle ground over how to re-arrange parking in the busy downtown neighbourhood in line with recent concerns raised by the fire department.

After discussions between the city and businesses, angled parking on Hamilton and Mainland streets is going to be retained instead of parallel parking stalls on the opposite side of the streets, which was the original plan.

Keeping angled parking over parallel parking won’t initially change the number of spaces to be lost, said the Yaletown Business Improvement Association’s Annette O’Shea.

But she said they were “optimistic” about the revised plan, which will actually allow for a number of new spots to be created.

“What we’re really happy about is the city came back to the table ... they really heard the message of small business.”

The city said the message was heard clearly.

“We heard concerns from businesses and residents about the proposed designs we put forward in January ... and have been working with the Yaletown BIA and business community to explore alternate options that will keep as much parking as possible and meet (fire department) requirements,” Lon LaClaire, the city’s director of transportation, said in a news release.

The need to remove some street parking came after Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service said the sections of Mainland and Hamilton with parking on both sides were too narrow for their fire trucks to safely operate. The BIA accepted the rationale, but was frustrated by both the process and the drastic initial proposal.

O’Shea and the BIA’s membership criticized the plan and said the city’s consultation was almost nonexistent. The BIA said it understood the issues expressed by the fire department, but insisted there was another way. The revised plan will allow for the relocation of a number of garbage bins, which will create new spaces. Currently there are about 200 spots in the area; the original plan would have retained 120 spots, while the revised plan will initially retain three fewer, but the garbage bins currently take up space good for 60 new spaces, O’Shea said.

“(The city) really understood it was a valid issue,” she said of the loss of parking. The BIA recognized many of their clients come to the area on foot, by bike or on transit, but many of the area’s businesses are medical offices catering mostly to patients who are unable to come to the area in anything but a car. Drastically reducing parking would greatly affect them, O’Shea said.

We heard concerns from businesses and residents about the proposed designs we put forward in January.

While there will still be a reduction in parking, O’Shea said things now look a little less painful.

“Keeping angled parking causes the least amount of pain,” she said.

Yaletown is the only major area in the city where garbage has to be put out on major streets as opposed to in back alleys or on side streets. The plan going forward will be to modify storage areas in some buildings, getting other businesses to share bins and in some cases simply moving the bins to new locations.

Additionally, the city notes many of the angled spots will have to be shortened to allow fire trucks to pass. Longer vehicles will not be able to use many of the spaces and people using them will have “to consistently park properly,” the city noted.

The new plan will be rolled out in April and the city will evaluate how it works for as much as a year.