SPARROW (Independent): I would like to see us start thinking differently about how we utilize parking during the hours when many parking lots sit empty. There are numerous examples of schools, parks and even business parking lots which sit empty adjacent to residential areas during the majority of the hours residents and visitors are most in need of parking in residential areas. I would love to see us thinking differently and look at how we can partner with stakeholders to see valuable parking spaces in our community fully utilized.

WHITMARSH (Independent): The Township of Langley is over 310 square kilometres with 6 distinct communities and 75% of the land dedicated to agriculture. This means that most people will be getting around the community in cars with some choosing public transit or cycling. As a result, parking will remain an important challenge for many years to come. Some communities like Fort Langley and Aldergrove have a lack of parking to accommodate the local and tourist demands. I support the long-term parking facility in Aldergrove and believe we need a parking facility of some type (could be shared) in Fort Langley. We likely need to re-evaluate those areas that have an overabundance of parking to determine best use of that land.

WOODWARD (Contract with Langley): Excellent question that is very complex. We will overhaul and reform parking requirements that are producing inferior results for the community, and motivating poor urban development forms. We need some minimum quantity of parking with development, however, as well to ensure parking supply. We can have both with a good plan, and a plan for the long-term.

COLEMAN (Elevate Langley): Another multifaceted question. There is no question that there was a shortage of parking in some recent developments. There is also no question that going back a few decades n the ToL land was cheap and retail centres could afford large parking lots.

This brings us to today. You can’t force the owners of those older retail centres to redevelop, although someday in the Township’s not-too-distant future is reasonable to expect that redevelopment will happen. As Aldergrove knows sometimes it takes longer than some people would like.

Elevate Langley will keep an eye on the future and consider how the areas should redevelop. Mainly because many of these sprawling parking lots are at the center of the original design for the communities’ shopping area. Housing was built around them.

Yes, Elevate Langley supports minimum parking in new developments. Too little parking is frustrating for residents, visitors, and customers if it’s a commercial development.

There is a school of thought that limiting parking will force people to innovate and use other means of transportation, but it is best to let larger population, higher-density municipalities go first on this experiment.

GARDNER (Independent): Intuitively, most of us know we need accessible places to park our vehicles in order to navigate our daily lives. In practice, parking minimums and designing for personal vehicles have translated into horrific sprawl, more time spent in traffic, and poorer public health, overall making our communities less liveable over time. One idea to eliminate parking minimums in order to improve the urban landscape, while still acknowledging the need to store vehicles of all types, would be to have developers instead contribute to a transportation amenity fund, which could collectively support public car and bike parkades and charging centres in an underground and/or central location.

ELEVATE LANGLEY (Group Response): Another multifaceted question. There is no question that there was a shortage of parking in some recent developments. There is also no question that going back a few decades n the ToL land was cheap and retail centres could afford large parking lots.

This brings us to today. You can’t force the owners of those older retail centres to redevelop, although someday in the Township’s not-too-distant future is reasonable to expect that redevelopment will happen. As Aldergrove knows sometimes it takes longer than some people would like.

Elevate Langley will keep an eye on the future and consider how the areas should redevelop. Mainly because many of these sprawling parking lots are at the center of the original design for the communities’ shopping area. Housing was built around them.

Yes, Elevate Langley supports minimum parking in new developments. Too little parking is frustrating for residents, visitors, and customers if it’s a commercial development.

There is a school of thought that limiting parking will force people to innovate and use other means of transportation, but it is best to let larger population, higher-density municipalities go first on this experiment.

WARD (Independent): This touches on some of the same elements as dealt with in question number two. I am open to considering better usage of any public space. I do believe that adequate parking needs to be available for residential neighborhoods including single family dwellings, townhouses, and condominium complexes so as not to overly congest what are sometimes already packed areas which are difficult to maneuver for both pedestrians and vehicles. We need enough room to access and egress our homes and neighbourhoods. An idea for areas where there is an abundance of parking, primarily in commercial areas, are ‘sidewalk extensions’ that allow parklets to be installed at Township expense which creates wider sidewalks and more community (and commercial) use.

ARNASON (Independent): Yes, I have a number of ideas regarding enhancements based on best management practices to support parking policy objectives and sustainability goals. Many of these ideas come from jurisdictions outside the lower mainland that have already created robust policies in order to make parking policies more strategic. Parking management frameworks for urban areas are necessary in order to create clear and predictable long term objectives and also act to enhance overall urban mobility. One of the initiatives I would like to undertake is to seek public participation and engagement when developing parking policies for the Township. This is especially true as the implementation of standards for parking requirements in new developments such as in our burgeoning neighbourhoods has a big influence on mobility behaviours and decisions around car ownership. A refresh of our overall parking management strategy should also be predicated on an integrated approach to a multi-modal strategy which includes parking alongside the encouragement of opportunities for more sustainable and carbon neutral travel. For example, any parking strategy must include bicycle parking and also consider parking for service vehicles such as delivery trucks and other delivery modes such as e-cargo transportation. Policy revisions must also include provisions that consider older individuals and those with the disabilities that need to be accommodated within close proximity for both on-street parking and within a residential context. If re-elected, I would support the development of a policy review that would focus on such issues as land-use and zoning criteria, building and new parking infrastructure regulations, and mobility needs and patterns designed to address evolving parking standards within our existing, and projected, built urban environment.

CHANG (Independent): In all future development proposals, adequate parking should be a requirement. Sadly, there is little that can be done to reverse the parking issues in established neighbourhoods. But let’s not let that happen again.

PRATT (Independent): We should significantly reduce and/or eliminate parking minimums in areas that have or will have high-frequency and accessible transit. However, it is completely understandable that people will be hesitant of this change before we have the transit in place, so it needs to be implemented in a holistic way. There also needs to be a strategy to build more underground parking, which is only financially viable with higher density. We as a Township should also be facilitating the introduction of car share, bike share, and other micromobility options so that people have the opportunity to reduce the number of cars in their household if they wish. There are many tools in the tool box of traffic and parking management that are available, and on Council, I’ll be leading the discussion on implementing them.

MORAES (Independent): We need parking alternatives, my own neighborhood has NO PARKING FOR GUESTS. It’s annoying and inconvenient if you own more than one car. More thought of this needs to go into new housing areas.

CONTRACT WITH LANGLEY (Group Response): Excellent question that is very complex. We will overhaul and reform parking requirements that are producing inferior results for the community, and motivating poor urban development forms. We need some minimum quantity of parking with development, however, as well to ensure parking supply. We can have both with a good plan, and a plan for the long-term.

RESPONDEK (Independent): Unfortunately we cannot move the empty spaces to the areas of need. In the areas of overabundance, we need to look at why there is so much empty space and it might signify that these areas are not being used that much. Perhaps we need to look to improve those areas or redevelop them. In areas that lack parking, there are no easy answers. Many families have 3 or 4 vehicles and are usually only afforded 1 or 2 spaces depending on the housing type.

Parking structures could be built or extra parking expanded in each development (townhouse development as an example) but this would be incumbent upon the developers to produce, further complicating the issue of costs. This all stems from land and building costs being astronomically high.

RICHTER (Independent): Until Langley Township gets better transit, parking will always be a problem because of the need for more affordable housing (i.e secondary suites).

As I have discussed in Q#8 above, more orderly and directional development is needed, as well as better transit to reduce the need for cars.

The free-for-all development in any area with a Neighbourhood Plan which is currently occurring in the Township only exacerbates the problem.

TOWNSLEY (Independent): Minimum parking doesn’t make sense in many cases. The one exception is that we need more parking overall for people with disabilities in the Township. It has been brought to my attention that our Hospital does not have enough parking for persons with disabilities….that makes no sense to me.

We can’t just allow the planning department to “tick a box” when reviewing parking needs. We need to really think about why the parking is necessary and size accordingly. When parking is required in new development, I believe that underground parking is a priority.

SUARÉZ RUBIO (Independent): Yes, we need to study and analyze this issues and bring solutions; wherever possible.

POITRAS (Independent): This is a complex issue and I would need to lean on staff and or council members that are better versed in this area. My line of thinking is as we develop in a way that will increase the ease of walking and cycling in higher density areas that we will see this balance out. Parking minimums in new development is planning for auto-oriented communities that does not foster walkability.

DARNELL (Independent): My business has been negatively affected by the lack of planning for adequate parking We built 25+ years ago and the parking available for a fully functional building at that time was inadequate. Now that some of the neighboring properties are more fully developed and the last is on its way, parking shortages have been critical in the Willowbrook area. Adding to this is the reality that virtually none of my employees has transit access that would take them less than 2 hours each way to come to work. The Mall is adding stores and decreasing their available parking. I understand there may be a plan to rent out some spaces there, especially with the arrival of Skytrain. Then we get into the 24% Translink tax. Parking is a major concern and the ByLaw and Development Bylaws and Policies need immediate review and overhaul.

JOEHL (Independent): I do not think that parking minimums are the silver bullet that it is intended to be. Mandating any amount of real estate to be allocated for parking spots drives up the cost of building the home. Not all families have the same needs. Yes, street parking can be a nightmare for those that depend on it. My best solution is to institute a city-wide parking pass system that will help in a few ways. 1) It will assign a visible cost to users of public/street parking and this will influence behavior to pay the pass amount or to stop utilizing those spaces. 2) It will raise funds which can be dedicated to funding bylaw enforcement and maintaining those areas. 3) It will replace all the other patchwork, inconsistent, and sometimes unfair parking regulations we currently have across our municipality.

VAN POPTA (Contract with Langley): I’ve run out of time to answer this one! Sorry.

KUNST (Independent): I think shared parking is something we need to see more of as some parking spots are not always utilized at certain times of the day.

While I support parking minimums to a degree because we live in an area where everyone has and need 2 cars unfortunately, I am absolutely willing to be educated more on how we/I can think about this differently especially as we plan and develop our communities in the future. I really appreciated reading Walkable City, thank you for recommending it, especially the chapter on parking 🙂