Report suggests alternative parking plan
Build new lots behind buildings rather than tearing them down, city staff urge
A new report urges a ban on demolishing buildings in Windsor to create parking on main commercial streets, and instead allowing the creation of new lots in the back.
There are already examples of this kind of approach — on Erie Street and Ottawa Street — where BIAs have bought up residential properties to create lots that don’t mar the continuity of commercial buildings but provide the parking that businesses need, members of the city’s planning committee heard Monday night.
The report was ordered after council passed a temporary bylaw in 2015 banning demolition of buildings for parking within the city’s business improvement areas. This had been happening occasionally, but when you put them all together, the demolitions were having a “significant impact” on the viability of the commercial areas, said planner Greg Atkinson, creating missing teeth in a row of commercial buildings that would lead to the area’s decline.
The temporary bylaw expires in September.
The report addresses eight BIAs (the downtown BIA is the subject of its own parking study), plus several commercial areas not within BIA boundaries. What they have in common is they were created before the automobile became dominant, so parking has always been a problem.
“We’re not affecting the quantity of parking, we’re simply shifting the location behind the buildings,” said Atkinson.
The report still has to go to council for final approval. It would allow parking lots that go two or three residential lots deep behind commercial buildings, with rules for landscaping and other features to help with appearance. The Ford City area has different rules because of how the streets are configured behind Drouillard Road.
“It’s not a perfect solution, but our task was to keep our buildings and accommodate parking,” Atkinson said.