Michael Lewis
Special to Ontario Construction News
Toronto city councillors are sounding the alarm over a lack of visitor and accessible parking spaces in proposed condominium developments.
“Most of the applications coming forward, zero parking,” Eglinton-Lawrence coun. Mike Colle said at council’s meeting on February 4.
He cited adjacent 53-storey condominium towers in the densely populated Yonge -Eglinton neighbourhood approved by the province that he said make no provision for parking.
The towers are on lots so narrow, Colle said, that the development calls for a turntable system at the back of the buildings to allow service vehicles including garbage trucks to turn around.
Visitor’s parking at condo projects came into focus after the city in 2022 amended its zoning bylaw to remove most requirements for new developments to provide a minimum amount of resident parking on site, with reduced visitor parking requisites connected to factors including distance to transit.
Most councillors said as more Torontonians function without their own vehicles and as the city works to promote the use of public transit to reduce carbon emissions, dropping resident parking requirements is an acceptable trade-off.
But the 2024 passage of Bill 185, provincial legislation that aims to encourage affordable residential construction (builders’ groups said the cost of each parking stall is passed on to buyers), removes the ability of municipalities to require any parking other than spaces for bicycles.
That means builders are no longer obliged to provide a minimum number of parking spots for residents, visitors or the disabled.
The result is that condo project applications bring too few visitor’s parking spaces, said Willowdale Coun. Lily Cheng. That deters not only visits from family and friends but from personal support workers, service technicians, and delivery drivers.
She has also called on city staff to consider the “greater need” for visitor parking in the suburbs, pointing out that condo projects in those communities with limited visitor parking mean a spillover of illegal parking in surrounding areas.
“New developments are being approved with minimal visitor parking. This will present some foreseeable challenges, especially in the suburbs where there is neither permitted street parking, nor sufficient public parking lots available,” Cheng said.
Council unanimously approved Cheng’s motion asking the Ford government to “establish guidelines to support adequate visitor and accessible parking in Major Transit Station Areas and Protected Major Transit Station Areas, particularly in areas where higher order transit has not yet been built.”
She said the guidelines would define adequate parking and provide transparency so that potential condo buyers know if visitor’s and accessible parking spaces are to be provided.
The motion also said the city should consider expanding city-owned lots to support new areas of density as part of its strategic parking framework review that could see designated loading zones bylaws for residences amended to allow passenger and wheelchair access.
“Visitor parking, to me, is a necessity,” Cheng said. “You need visitor’s parking in light of our aging population. Not everyone can take transit.
“What we’re getting now is applications that have astonishingly low visitor’s parking. I can’t imagine how that is sustainable. I know that our hands are tied by provincial policies, but we have to raise the alarm.”
She said she knows of residents who regret condo purchases because of a lack of visitor’s parking, adding that the ability of visitors to park eases social isolation.
“We have to keep pressing for more transparency, let buyers know about visitor’s parking because by the time it’s built out it’s more difficult to fix,” Cheng said, suggesting as well that “we need to encourage developer partners to consider adding more even though requirements are low.
“A lot of us suburban councillors see a future where the inadequate number of visitors parking being proposed is going to result in issues and challenges were going to have to solve later on.”
Council also approved an amendment by University-Rosedale coun. Dianne Saxe requiring staff to report by the first quarter of 2027 with recommendations on how to accommodate disability-related parking near major transit stations.
“We should have a plan to accommodate people with disabilities in light of Bill 185,” she told the meeting. “As a city, we are going to have to find other ways to provide mobility for the handicapped. In some cases, not everyone will be available to park.
“We need to tell people what the plan is. Right now, we are just keeping our head down and not dealing with the issue.”
Saxe added that condominium projects are being built in her ward with little or no parking, citing a development at 717 Church Street with 312 units over 27 storeys that she said has one visitor parking space.
“If one person has a PSW nobody else can have a PSW, or a plumber….”
