By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle
Parking in Oliver’s downtown continues to be the main holdup for developing bylaws to comply with new provincial legislation.
The town’s attempt to remove the historic downtown parking area, and to reduce off-street parking requirements by 100 per cent in the entire town centre has been shut down by council.
Randy Houle, director of development services with the town of Oliver presented updated amendments to Zoning Bylaw 1380 and the Offical Community Plan (OCP) that must be completed before the implementation of provincial Small Scale Multi-Unit Housing Legislation on June 30, 2024.
These new proposed amendments come after council already rejected some changes back in February because of parking concerns, at that time council denied reducing the number of required parking spaces for townhouses or apartments to one space per unit regardless of size and opted to keep it at two spaces.
All parcels coloured dark red are zoned Town Center (TC), pale yellow parcels are zoned Residential Low Density One (RS1), light blue parcels are zoned Administrative, Institutional and Cultural (A1), and green is zoned Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PR).
On April 2, council voted against approving changes to parking in the downtown area. The proposed change was to eliminate all requirements for commercial parking in the town centre in order to comply with the provincial legislation to encourage development.
Houle explained in both council meetings that parking is the number one thing that prevents development from being built.
The proposed change would see any new commercial development in the town centre not be required to provide anything more than on street parking.
Councillor Petra Veintimilla expressed her distress with the idea of reducing parking and again asked “Where are people going to park?” while bringing up some specific lots in the area that the town plans to develop.
One such lot is the space beside the Firehall Bistro, which used to be home to a gas station.
Councillor David Mattes explained about this property that “I can’t see that lot being developed without a requirement for some parking, underground, or somewhere else, it’s just too large of a property to say no parking required.”
Veintimilla proposed that no changes be made to the parking in this downtown area. All councillors agreed on the motion except for Councillor Aimee Grice.
Grice noted that her position differs from the other councillors on parking. She explained that Oliver is not at the point of parking being a concern for the town yet and noted that hopefully, by that time, they would have solved the public transit problem.
The other main proposed change that council did pass was reducing the minimum parcel width to 4.5 m for panhandle developments in Residential Low Density One (RS1), and six metres for all other zones. Panhandle developments are ones where there is a development at the rear of a lot with an existing home on it that can be accessed by a small lane on the property.
Previous to these amendments coming to council, the town held a public open house on March 13, 2024 at the Community Centre to provide education on the new housing legislation. The town noted that nine residents attended and discussion ensued around “options to densify existing lots and impacts to parking and infrastructure.”
There was also a survey posted on the town’s website from March 6 to March 20 that received 18 submissions. This data showed that 61 per cent of respondents indicated a strong level of understanding of the new provincial housing legislation while 83 per cent indicated that the housing shortage is a moderate to high concern in the community.
The survey also revealed that 77 per cent of people say this does not change how they view their property’s potential and 23 per cent of people indicated they are thinking of selling.
Houle is tasked with making the noted changes and bringing the bylaws to council for first and second reading on April 22.
