Staff urges ending reduction in patio fees

Cutting rates didn’t result in more spots: report

Cutting patio fees along Preston Street didn’t result in a large number of new outdoor eating and drinking areas during a two-year pilot project, says a city staff report.

Staff recommend doing away with reduced rates for the area after just one new patio was set up in each year of the test run (and one of those was in the works before the fees went down.)

Still, after hearing concerns about expensive patio costs from merchants’ associations across the city, staff are to take another look at the rates. Another report is expected before the patio season, or in its early days.

Patio fees are charged at a rate per square metre per day. A pilot project that lowered fees along Preston Street from about $1.26 per square metre a day to about 55 cents started in 2011 after the area merchants’ association argued that lower fees would help businesses and possibly spark new patios on the recently reconstructed street.

The Preston Street Business Improvement Area and city agreed on a pilot project with success to be measured by the number of new patios and the retention of existing ones.

Over the two years, other areas saw more new patios or a number similar to Preston Street’s, the report says. “Staff ’s position is that the pilot project did not achieve the desired results and all patios on City Road Allowance should be subject to the same standard fee,” it states.

The city lost about $51,000 a year in revenue, the report says, and would miss out on about $263,000 a year if restaurant and bar owners across the city were charged at the reduced rates.

Council in 2011 also approved bylaw amendments that allowed patios to set up closer to residential zones, with restrictions.

“It would appear that the standard permit fee may not be a hindrance to the establishment of new patios, but possibly the former restrictive regulations for patios abutting residential zones,” it says.

Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street BIA, said it’s now working with other business areas calling for changes to what they see as an overly expensive fee structure.

“We’re uniting with other BIAs to work to get the rates down,” Mellor said. “We’re the most expensive city in Ontario.”

The report on the pilot project goes to council’s transportation committee next Monday.