Parking garage near LRT station is transit-friendly, city says
KITCHENER — The city, the region and the province all promote developments that discourage car use.
How is it then, that a major new development just steps from an LRT station includes plans for a five-storey parking garage?
Perimeter Development Corp. wants to build a 60-metre high office tower on Breithaupt Street, in the third phase of its Breithaupt Block development. Next to the office tower, it plans a parking garage with 651 spaces on six levels, including one underground level.
The five-storey garage would be within five metres of the backyards of nearby homes.
“I just think a five-storey parking garage is just wrong-headed,” said David Messmer, whose backyard will face the proposed garage.
“We’re spending almost a billion dollars on the LRT. We’re putting in a transit hub right there. The city just endorsed a new target for reducing our carbon footprint. If we’re going to do that, why are we building huge infrastructure for parking here?”
Kitchener council recently voted to delay a
decision on the project until June 25, largely because residents strongly objected to the height of the office tower, which is equivalent to that of a 20-storey apartment building.
City planner Garett Stevenson, who is recommending that Kitchener council approve the development, says even with a six-level garage, the project is in line with provincial, regional and city policies for pro-transit development that also encourages people to walk or cycle rather than drive.
The building will have plenty of secure bicycle parking for visitors and employees, and pedestrian connections to transit. And the 650-space parking garage actually provides much less parking than normally required.
The office tower will employ 700 to 1,000 people, and the city would typically require about 670 spots for a tower of that size. The city also requires 312 parking spots for the first two phases of the Breithaupt Block, whose workers now park on a surface lot on the site of the proposed office tower. So, although a 650-spot garage seems large, it’s actually much less parking than the city usually requires.
“We make a lot of effort in all of our projects to really reduce the amount of parking needed,” Craig Beattie, a partner of Perimeter, told council. “Parking is an expensive piece to a project, so where we can reduce that, we do our best.”
The reality though, is that, despite the availability of hundreds of bike stalls, showers for employees and nearby access to the LRT, many employees still want to drive to work, Beattie said.
“We’ve seen a lot of evolution over the last number of years, but you know parking is still a fundamental requirement of major employment users. We hope that that will change and decrease over time but it’s still substantial,” he said.
Stevenson agrees. “We’re not at the state where we can rely fully on transit ... It’s important to find a balance so that the development has sufficient parking so there isn’t parking impacts on the neighbourhood.”
Messmer thinks the best solution would be to build a smaller garage — maybe a single story underground and a surface lot, and provide offsite parking with a shuttle service. Offsite parking would reduce traffic impacts on the surrounding neighbourhood, and could be phased out as the LRT catches on, he says.
“That’s flexible. You can’t flex a five-storey parking garage.”
Although Beattie has made it clear he’s not keen to further tweak his proposal, Messmer believes there is room for compromise.
His wife Karen hopes so, too. “I’m going to be looking at a five-level wall,” she said. “Not exactly a nice view for us. We just want to continue enjoying our house, our yard and our neighbourhood.”