Urban living: Endangered spaces

Cochranetimespost.ca
Dec. 3

Sandra Sherman sold her car shortly before moving into the newly completed Residences at RCMI in 2014. Since the 42-storey condo building lacked private resident parking spots, “it would have been silly to keep it,” the fortysomething accountant explains.

Rising over University Ave. just south of Dundas Street, the 315-unit Tribute Communities project made GTA history by offering no more in the way of vehicle accommodations than a nine-spot car-share facility, which Sherman says she uses “all the time. Between that and the subway being right there, I’m saving huge amounts of money and not giving up much.”

While the Residences at RCMI is an extreme example of a zoning variance being used to reduce the number of parking spaces -- municipal requirements have long hovered around one space per unit -- more parking-lite condo projects are launching every year, to the benefit of residents and developers and, according to some, the city at large.

Concert Properties, for instance, recently applied for a variance to slash the number of parking spots in its 53-storey Burke Condos project from 323 to 180. This curtailment “was really influenced by how well-connected the property is to shopping, dining and different neighbourhoods, parks and trails,” Concert spokesperson Colleen Anderson explains. “Toronto is such a transit-oriented city, so we’re taking advantage of that.”

At the two-tower, 634-unit development proposed by Parallax Investment in Forest Hill, the three-level underground garage would provide 190 resident spaces and 15 visitor spaces. SUPPLIED

Then there’s the two-tower development recently proposed by Parallax Investment two blocks north of St. Clair West subway station in Forest Hill. Comprising 634 units, the project’s three-level underground garage would provide 190 resident spaces and 15 visitor spaces.

As well as being located near subway stops -- the Burke is less than a block south of the Sherbourne subway station -- both projects vastly exceed requirements for bicycle parking, with 504 and 635, respectively.

“Parking is a negative for us,” says Jared Menkes, executive vice-president of High-Rise Residential at Menkes Developments, adding that the company is favouring outdoor recreational spaces and cycling infrastructure over garages more than it ever has in multi-tower pre-construction projects such as Mobilio and Festival in Vaughan. “We find that we don’t sell enough of it, and people don’t want as much of it as they used to.”

Many condo buyers are balking at the cost of owning parking spots, he says, which average around $50,000 in downtown Toronto even before monthly maintenance fees are added. “We’ve been seeing it for years now: No one can afford a car and a parking spot. They want to spend their money on other things, like the restaurants, boutiques, galleries and clubs that prompted them to live downtown in the first place.”

In June, Lifetime Developments and Diamond Corp. applied for permission to replace the eight-storey above-ground parking garage at 200 Queens Quay West with a two-tower high-rise condo complex. SUPPLIED

With Toronto City Council adopting a motion to encourage development that makes transportation infrastructure easier to retrofit, a growing number of developers are proposing to do away with existing lots. In June, Lifetime Developments and Diamond Corp. applied for permission to replace the eight-storey above-ground parking garage at 200 Queens Quay West with a two-tower high-rise condo complex. Just south of the Distillery District, meanwhile, a quartet of developers -- Dream Unlimited Corp., Dream Hard Asset Alternatives Trust, Kilmer Van Nostrand Co. Ltd. and Tricon Capital Group Inc. -- are proposing to build 836 condo units on a site that is currently used for parking during special events like the Christmas Market.

The ultimate example of GTA parking replacement may well take place around Yorkdale Mall. One of the options being proposed for the City of Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre Block Master Plan calls for up to 1,500 residential units to be built on the mall’s sprawling above-ground parking lot.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve been very forward-looking in making changes to parking requirements,” says Michael Hain, the City of Toronto’s manager of Transportation Planning Policy and Analysis. “Last time the City comprehensively updated its parking requirements was 2013, and that was based on background reports that had been done years earlier.”

One of the options being proposed for the City of Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre Block Master Plan calls for up to 1,500 residential units to be built on the mall’s sprawling above-ground parking lot. SUPPLIED

While requests for more public parking are non-existent, says Hain, developers are submitting “a significant number of applications to get site-specific amendments to have less parking than what the zoning bylaw requires. Parking is expensive to construct.”

The volume of applications has been such that the City has started to assess the need to change parking requirements, especially now that some Canadian municipalities, such as Edmonton, have recently removed minimum parking requirements from zoning bylaws. “These are standards that need to last for a long time, and we see flexibility as being key to them being viable,” Hain says. “In the last few years we’ve seen new technologies in the transportation space really change the way people travel. And we anticipate that that will continue in a way that may not be foreseeable.”

Matti Siemiatycki, a professor in the University of Toronto’s department of Geography and Planning, believes people will continue to replace parking “with their wallets and with their feet. They’re buying into buildings that have less parking, and not taking the option of buying a parking spot. The fact that developers are continuing to ask for reduced parking spaces, and that regulations are changing, are clear signs that there has been a shift in public thinking.” And, in short, toward less car use.

While the drastic drop in transit usage during the pandemic is challenging this shift, Siemiatycki says COVID-19 has “refocused attention on building complete communities where people can walk and cycle to the services they need in their daily lives, because those are the communities that are most resilient to shocks to the system.”