‘ Sea change’ in car culture means fewer parking stalls

New 112- unit condo development on Cordova Street furnished with just 13 parking spaces

The freshly completed condominium building at 60 West Cordova has 112 living units, but only 13 parking stalls — the lowest amount of parking required for a residential building in the city’s recent history.

“A lot of the people buying here weren’t interested in any form of vehicle ownership or use,” said Michael Braun, sales and marketing manager for Westbank, which developed the building.

The parking situation at the new building reflects what Vancouver city Coun. Geoff Meggs calls a “sea change” in the car culture that has led the city to cut requirements for parking stalls for new buildings.

The trend is now spreading to the rest of Metro Vancouver, where municipalities generally require one stall for each apartment or condominium unit, plus spaces for visitors.

Metro Vancouver will consider a report this week that urges member municipalities to reduce the number of parking stalls required in apartment and condominium buildings, especially in rental buildings and in locations close to transit.

Metro’s apartment parking study of 80 buildings and 1,500 apartment households found that thousands of parking stalls are unused across the region and that the oversupply ranges from 18 to 35 per cent.

Parking demand is particularly low in buildings near transit and among renters. Car ownership is lower among renters than among condo- owners, the report said.

“Parking is very expensive to build and cars are very expensive to own and people are looking for opportunities to get away from driving whenever they can,” said Meggs.

A recent study by the city found a large unused inventory of parking spaces along Hornby Street, right in the heart of the downtown core, Meggs said.

“There’s a sea change happening,” said Meggs. “It may be the beginning of the end of the age of the car.”

The Metro report says people are increasingly looking for alternatives to car ownership.

Car- sharing services such as Modo, ZipCar and car2go are an increasingly popular option for young people, according to the report.

The average age of a ZipCar member is 21 years, according to the company’s Vancouver general manager Mark Pribula. ZipCar membership has grown by 20 to 25 per cent each year since 2008. The company has placed cars in new buildings in Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey.

“We are scaling up really fast,” said Pribula. “When you see residential projects going up and people not using the parking, you can draw your own conclusions. It’s exciting.”

The number of cars registered to drivers in Metro Vancouver is growing, but at a rate far slower than the general population as more people opt for a life without a personal automobile.

Municipalities that enjoy good transit service — Vancouver, Coquitlam and the North Shore communities — are seeing little growth in the number of cars on the road, especially since 2008, according to figures from ICBC. The number of vehicles registered in Richmond dropped between 2008 and 2011.

Vancouver is vigorously pursuing reduced parking requirements as a tool to encourage developers to build rental units, said Meggs.

Vancouver also offers developers lower parking requirements when developers set aside stalls and arrange for a car- sharing service to serve the building, a feature in nearly all new developments.

In addition to the building at 60 West Cordova, the city has dramatically reduced parking requirements for residential buildings in Marpole, along Kingsway and Broadway, and in the huge Collingwood Village development, which was built in 1996.

According to the Metro report, the cost of supplying parking stalls can be up to 10 per cent of the cost of a building — $ 20,000 to $ 45,000 per stall.

Surrey has reduced parking requirements for several developers who offer car- sharing to the residents or who provide the city with cash in lieu of parking for local transportation amenities such as bicycle paths, according to Surrey director of transportation Jaime Boan.

In one recently built development, the parking requirement for 12 bachelor suites in a 100- unit building was reduced to .7 stalls per unit, Boan said.

As the density and walkability of downtown increases, council will have to revisit Surrey’s parking requirements, Boan said.

Surrey has no figures to confirm that it is oversupplied with parking spaces, but Boan suspects it may by the case.

“Anecdotally we are hearing that recent developments have available spaces,” he said.