It will take $25 million to build a parkade for 400 vehicles in Downtown Squamish, according to a consultant report that was commissioned by the district.
District hired ISL engineering for a Downtown Parkade study, which will be discussed by the council today.
Based on the future needs of the community, ISL estimates the community would need 316 parking spaces in Downtown Squamish.
They come at a steep price, however.
It would cost $10 million to create 200 parking stalls, $19 million for 300 spaces, and $25 million for 400 spaces.
In other words, a parking spot would cost the taxpayers $50,000, $63,333 and $62,500 for the 200, 300 and 400 space parkades respectively.
The cash-in-lieu the district charges from developers, $15,000 per spot, won’t even come close to pay for the parkade.
There is only $450,000 in that fund, and if all the estimated commercial development was complete, that fund would only reach $5 million, far short of what is required to build the parkade.
If the district increases the cash-in-lieu with a parkade in mind, it can stifle development in the downtown core, the report says.
It will also decrease affordability as developers will likely pass that cost to the person buying the unit.
The district staff is recommending an increase in cash-in-lieu fees to more closely reflect the real cost of construction. Examples include Whistler at $20,000, Vancouver at $24,700 and Kelowna at $33,000.
The other staff suggestion is a pay-parking program, which will enable district to recoup its investment, even though it would take anywhere from two to 12 years, depending on the size of the parkade.
“If the district were to opt for a pay-paring model for the new parkade, it has the potential to cover some of the construction costs, and eventually return positive revenue for the district,” the report states.
The report suggests implementing on-street pay parking in the short-term to not only raise funds for parking improvements, but also encourage greater parking turnover and discourage long-term use of parking spaces.
Implementation of on-street pay parking was also recommended in the 2017 Downtown Parking Study.
According to the consultant’s report, there are more than 1,000 residential and commercial parking spaces in the downtown.
Nancy Collings says
Would it be pay parking?
Ron says
By the sounds of all this, the Planning Dept has not been doing a very good job of planning. They should have known that residential and commercial development requires parking. So why have they been granting parking reducing variances instead of increasing onsite parking requirements. Bigger is not always better. The planning dept and city council has really put their neck in a noose this time.
If pay parking is in fact introduced for Joe Public then all of the parking stalls should be converted to pay parking and no assistance via payroll should be given to city hall employees. I fact the CRA should be ensuring that all those currently using staff parking should have a Taxable Benefit added onto their T4’s.
David Lassmann says
I don’t know that the planning department should be blamed. It is the responsibility of our District government to give directions to staff, not the other way around. There seems to be inconsistency in philosophy coming from our elected representatives. Are they trying to create an environment where people must rely less on private vehicles? Have they abandoned that strategy in favour of the status quo? Or are they simply giving in to whatever demands developers make and making taxpayers face the consequences? Perhaps our District government will have the decency to have an open town meeting and answer directly to the electorate.
Donald Patrick says
Parking has been on our lips for many years … and council takes the recommendations from the professional staff …. who come from the same classroom with planning ideas that have been maybe successful in other jurisdictions… but we are still a Dead End town. The power of the developer and the grandeur plans seem to overcome logic. We just have to admit that poor judgement has prefailed for many years. I remember the days of Bill Bloxham, Stan Kary and Shatenkirk…. one could feel the logic when those folks spoke…. now ? If the business community wants to have customers, it is not always the product and price that lures them in … some convenience has to be one of the factors and spending time circling town looking for a parking spot is not the answer and riding a bike is just making a statement…..but now with the shopping online trends, who knows best ? I bet the DOS has already decided on how to spend the future tax revenue from LNG…. the idea of a reserve does not seem popular.