The City of Colwood has taken the first step in exploring options to prohibit future developments from charging for parking on private land following an outcry over a developer implementing paid parking at Colwood Corners.
At a regular meeting of council Tuesday (April 11), council unanimously approved the motion introduced by Mayor Doug Kobayashi to direct staff to return to council with a report providing options for council to consider.
Speaking to the Goldstream Gazette on Friday (April 14), Kobayashi said the complex issue requires much thought and plenty of data which the city simply does not have at this time, hence this first step was needed before any possible changes can be made.
“We received a lot of emails from angry customers that were using the businesses down at (Colwood Corners), and it was pretty hard to get to the bottom of it,” said Kobayashi. “With this, we are trying to find out what the best practise is out there, what is everyone doing, what is working, and what isn’t working. There isn’t much more I can say to it right now because we just don’t have the data to make a decision.”
In March, developer Onni introduced a paid parking system at Colwood Corners where customers of local businesses were able to get 90 minutes of free parking – provided they signed up for an app and entered their license plate information – then charged for any additional parking time.
Kobayashi said he eventually found out the reason behind the introduction of paid parking at the development was residents of the site’s apartment building were starting to park in the commercial parking spaces, in part due to a decision made two councils prior which reduced the required amount of residential parking spaces for the development.
“This is one of the very first joint residential and commercial facilities that we have in Colwood,” he said. “It makes sense what they did, but of course a lot of people were angered by this. The bottom line was there was a reason behind this, and nobody wanted to do this. There are now more issues with this, because people wanting to avoid the metered parking are parking on side streets in the area.”
While staff will now conduct research to see what options Colwood could consider to avoid the issue moving forward, one potential option council is already aware of is a requirement the City of Langford sets for residential developments in that community.
Langford requires through a covenant such developments provide one parking space per residential unit, and prohibits them from charging for that space. That requirement was put in place to address issues with residents parking on streets in order to avoid having to pay for a spot in their building’s lot.
Kobayashi said he expects it will take some time for staff to do the required research to come up with options for council to consider.