Scot picks up on another chapter in Surrey’s East Clayton parking saga:
From Frank Luba in The Province:
When Clayton was first designed and developed about 15 years ago, it was meant to be a , walking community,” said Hayne. “It was kind of ahead of its time.”
The intention was to have small lots, just nine metres wide, with small houses — although there was an option for coach houses.
“One of the key things that was to be utilized was public transit,” said Hayne. “The concept sounded great.”
But transit doesn’t fully serve the area, and many homes put in a basement suite in addition to a coach house — so there could be three families on one lot.
“It makes it almost impossible to contain the number of cars on your premises,” said Hayne.
.
.
Not everyone has a problem with removing parking.
Clayton Heights resident Mike Wellar thinks the issue is the excessive number of secondary suites in the area.
“You need to definitely enforce the rules in terms of suites,” said Wellar.
Surrey allows one secondary suite per home and charges an annual fee of approximately $500.
But some homes have more than one suite, according to Hayne.
Wellar also thinks the parking problem could be reduced if people cleaned out garages and used them for parking, as he does.
Another solution could be to have permit parking.
“One of the key things that was to be utilized was public transit,” said Hayne. “The concept sounded great.”
But transit doesn’t fully serve the area, and many homes put in a basement suite in addition to a coach house — so there could be three families on one lot.
We always hear about how Clayton area was supposed to be transit-oriented, but was it? It’s location makes that very difficult. It’s relatively isolated, especially when it was first developed. Other than that areas close to Fraser Hwy, it’s hard to see how transit can work well here. All indications seem to be that the plan for Clayton area didn’t consider transit integration in any meaningful way, and now the residents are paying for it…
It’s funny how that works. I live in the Norquay Village area, an area that is in the process of densifying. We have excellent transit service, with busses and the 29th St. Skytrain nearby. As usual, the city is letting developers put in projects that are light on the parking. Unfortunately, parking has always been bad in our neighbourhood due to the amount of suites, and it continues to get worse. We are some of the lucky few that have off street parking in the laneway, but for everyone else it is a sh$t show. Between the the nearby church, the park-and-riders (for Skytrain) and the secondary suites, parking is always scarce. It is one thing to get people out of their cars, it is quite another to get people to relinquish car ownership, and herein lies the problem. (disclaimer: I too own a car, but prefer to commute to work (UBC) by bike, and use Skytrain to go downtown, the vehicle only gets used when use of the first two modes of transportation are impractical).
Why not simply charge for on-street parking. If demand exceeds supply the price should go up until both are in balance. That simple principle works quite well for most things in life, including housing. And it can easily handle pretty much any parking ‘shortage’.
You would certainly see those cluttered garages clean out fast.
Jens – the city does indeed charge for on-street parking in most business areas (meters) to create turnover (and revenue) and for residential parking in some areas, like the West End. It doesn’t solve the problem however, when the vast majority of on-street parking is used only by residents, who find it cheaper than paying for their own on-site or basement parking.
I agree with Jens. Charging for street parking in an area like Norquay Village or any other area where demand exceeds supply would work well. Net revenues after collection costs could be used to reduce property taxes in the area.
Coming soon to Vancouver. When you allow multiple suites on a previously SFH lot, and only require one parking spot. Similarly, when you give yet another break to developers and require less parking than reasonable (under the cloak of being green of course).
It’s already happening. As people are moving away from private vehicle use, this makes a lot of sense. Why build parking spots which will never be used? This is already the case in downtown Vancouver.
Here’s an idea. In a new apartment building, require an area for each unit to be used by them for whatever they’d like. Then if the residents want to put in their own bike cage or park a car (or both) or their deep freezer it’s up to them according to their lifestyle and is able to change over time as their life changes. (Maybe it could be transportation and recreation specific. So no excess furniture storage but a surfboard would be okay for example.)
Clayton is a monumental failure by the theorists to understand the function of the single family home. A house is not just another residential unit like an apartment or a condo. A house is an economic opportunity as well as a dwelling place. It needs surrounding space to accommodate functions of sharing and self employment.
East Clayton is a monumental failure by the theorists to understand what constitutes a complete community in practice.
I think it wasn’t a failure of theorists so much as a failure of the location. If this was close to a rapid transit station (or even a B-Line bus stop) none of this would have happened and the theorists would be applauded.
I checked out the city plans and they are turning the narrow road into a 4 lane thoroughfare. Good news is that they are adding painted bike lanes and sidewalks, but in the end there will be no street parking. So, residents are going from abundant right angle parking to zero street parking. I can see why they might be a little irritated.
Patrick Condon if you are out there can we get some input from you on this issue. I believe it was part of one of your design charrettes? Would be great to get your insight. thanks