Vancouver City Council Eliminates Parking Mandates, Supports TOD

In a sig­nif­i­cant step towards more diverse hous­ing and fos­ter­ing tran­sit-friend­ly , today, Van­cou­ver City Coun­cil adopt­ed the Tran­sit-Ori­ent­ed Areas (TOA) Des­ig­na­tion By-law and elim­i­nat­ed min­i­mum park­ing man­dates.

“This is a major mile­stone in our com­mit­ment to expand­ing hous­ing choic­es for all Van­cou­ver res­i­dents,” said May­or Sim. “By inte­grat­ing hous­ing diver­si­ty with tran­sit acces­si­bil­i­ty, we are paving the way for a more sus­tain­able, inclu­sive, and vibrant city. These mea­sures will help us meet the hous­ing needs of our res­i­dents while fos­ter­ing com­plete, con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.”

Today’s actions align with require­ments under the Province’s TOA (Bill 47) leg­is­la­tion. Intro­duced in Novem­ber 2023 this bill aims to pro­mote the devel­op­ment of more diverse hous­ing and the cre­ation of walk­a­ble, tran­sit-friend­ly neigh­bour­hoods.

Transit-Oriented Area designation by-law

The City’s new TOA By-law des­ig­nates 29 TOAs and adopts the fol­low­ing min­i­mum den­si­ties:

  • Rapid Tran­sit (Sky­Train) Sta­tion: With­in 200 metres, up to 20 storeys; with­in 400 metres, up to 12 storeys; with­in 800 metres, up to 8 storeys.
  • Bus Exchange: With­in 200 metres, up to 12 storeys; with­in 400 metres, up to 8 storeys.

The TOA By-law is accom­pa­nied with a rezon­ing pol­i­cy  pro­vides guid­ance on rezon­ing con­di­tions, but is not itself a rezon­ing. Prop­er­ty own­ers will need to to rezone their prop­er­ty if they would like to increase height and/or den­si­ty above what is cur­rent­ly allowed. The City is pro­gress­ing through oth­er work plans to proac­tive­ly these and oth­er areas, which will come for­ward to Coun­cil for future deci­sions.

Minimum parking requirements for all land uses eliminated city-wide

Coun­cil also vot­ed today to elim­i­nate min­i­mum park­ing require­ments, city-wide, for all land uses. This action goes beyond the Province’s leg­is­la­tion for Tran­sit Ori­ent­ed Areas TOAs and Small-Scale Mul­ti-Unit Hous­ing (SSMUH) and makes Van­cou­ver the fourth Cana­di­an city (after Edmon­ton, Toron­to and Mon­tre­al) to remove these require­ments.

Remov­ing this require­ment city-wide will advance the City’s objec­tives to sim­pli­fy reg­u­la­tions and accel­er­ate per­mit approval times as well as move us ahead on our trans­porta­tion and cli­mate emer­gency goals. Part of this work includes sim­pli­fy­ing Van­cou­ver’s Park­ing By-law will be reduced from 33 to 17 pages and 63 unique park­ing rates will be delet­ed. Acces­si­ble spots for peo­ple with , vis­i­tor spaces, bike park­ing spaces, and load­ing spaces will con­tin­ue to be .

Elim­i­nat­ing min­i­mum park­ing require­ments allows devel­op­ers to the right amount of park­ing that their project needs. Staff do not antic­i­pate sig­nif­i­cant impacts to on-street park­ing, how­ev­er, tools such as time lim­its, pay park­ing or per­mit park­ing could be intro­duced to any impacts. ( more in the Coun­cil report).

More diverse housing

City Coun­cil also passed amend­ments to the Zon­ing and Devel­op­ment By-law last week, align­ing it with the Province’s SSMUH leg­is­la­tion (Bill 44). Mul­ti­plex homes are now per­mit­ted in more areas. This means the vast major­i­ty of Van­cou­ver’s sin­gle fam­i­ly zones are now eli­gi­ble for mul­ti­plex­es. 

Next steps

The City will ensure the effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of TOA and SSMUH leg­is­la­tions. These changes, and oth­er ini­tia­tives to advance more hous­ing sup­ply and hous­ing options, are being advanced through the imple­men­ta­tion of the Van­cou­ver Plan. To mit­i­gate land spec­u­la­tion and in align­ment with achiev­ing the objec­tives of the Hous­ing Needs Report, the focus will con­tin­ue to be on increas­ing rental and afford­able hous­ing over mar­ket con­do­mini­ums.

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