Slide 1

Hello- Welcome to the Parking and Driveway information session. My name is Abby Watts and I am the Project Manager of the CZBR. I’m here today with Joan Jylanne and Andrew Sandor. 

We will be recording today’s session to post on the virtual open house webpage for those who are unable to attend the live sessions.  

I will provide a 15-minute presentation that gives an overview of the parking and driveway regulations.

The rest of the time today will be reserved for your questions and comments. Once the presentation is over, Andrew will provide instructions for how to ask a question. You can also type a question in the chat box during the presentation. 

Slide 2

For the agenda today:

• We will go over the project timeline
• We will take a step back to review what a zoning bylaw is
• I will provide an overview of parking and driveway regulations 
• And the rest of the time will be dedicated to questions and comments from you

Slide 3

• The zoning bylaw review consists of 5 phases as shown on this slide
• We are currently at the end of Phase 3, which includes the preparation, presentation, and community consultation of the draft zoning bylaw
• The last part of phase 3 is community consultation which will take place from now until December 20. Council is not making a decision on the bylaw at this point.
• Phase 4 of the project includes a statutory public meeting and a decision meeting at Council which is anticipated to be completed in 2022

Slide 4

What is a zoning bylaw?

A zoning bylaw is a set of rules that tell us:

• How land can be used
• Where buildings, structures and parking can be located
• The size of buildings, structures, and lots
• And how much parking is required for a use

 Slide 5

• In Ontario we have a planning hierarchy
• We need to comply with the Ontario Planning Act and Provincial Policy 
• On a local level we have our Official Plan which consists of a number of policies that represent the City’s vision for growth and development in the city
• And then there’s the Zoning Bylaw which is a set of rules that implements our Official Plan policies and Provincial Policy
• Our Zoning Bylaw must conform to these documents.

• This means that some aspects of the Zoning Bylaw are not up for debate. For example, we cannot zone a property commercial that is designated residential in the Official Plan. 

Slide 6

The draft zoning bylaw is divided into 6 parts and 19 sections. 

The parts include:

• Administration and interpretation
• Definitions
• General provisions and parking
• The Land use zones
• Site-specific provisions and zones, and the
• Zoning schedules

Slide 7

The parking section includes regulations for:

• A new approach to parking based on the location within the city
• How many parking spaces are required based on the use of a property
• Updated regulations for maximum garage and driveway widths
• Added Electric vehicle and bicycle parking space requirements
• Drive-through facility regulations and stacking space requirements
• Other regulations include:
• Where parking can be located on a property
• The design and dimensions for a parking space
• Location of loading spaces
• New automated parking system permissions
• We’ve updated the accessible parking space requirements

Slide 8

• The draft zoning bylaw proposes varying parking requirements for Downtown Areas, Mixed Use Areas, and the rest of the City.
• The draft zoning bylaw proposes a parking adjustment area which is identified on the zoning maps with a (PA) in brackets following a zone
• The parking adjustment has been applied to the city’s intensification areas, which are the community mixed use nodes and intensification corridors. Low density residential including single detached, semi-detached and on-street townhouses have been excluded from these areas
• The parking adjustment reduces the minimum parking space requirements and adds a maximum number of parking spaces for properties within these areas. Parking rates are provided in Table 5.2 of the bylaw and downtown parking rates are provided in Table 5.3.

 Slide 9

• Parking should reflect the specific needs of different areas, and this depends on access to transit, how walkable a neighbourhood is to commercial amenities and mixed-use areas.
• Reducing parking requirements in intensification areas promotes growth management, transit and bicycle use, and pedestrian friendly design
• The use of parking maximums has become more widespread amongst other muncipalities as an effective tool to prevent excessive parking and encourage pedestrian friendly design 
• Reduced parking minimums and parking maximums are being recommended for the City’s priority growth areas, they are not being recommended city-wide as parking demand is higher in areas where transit service is not as well supported

Slide 10

• The proposed parking rates were developed by parking industry experts. We hired IBI Group to study our parking needs and provide recommendations. These recommendations can be found in the Guelph Parking Standards Discussion Paper. This is available on the project webpage- Guelph.ca/zoningreview
• IBI conducted a review of: 

Approved Official Plan policy and other guiding documents

Conducted a Guelph off-street parking demand survey (data collected)

Reviewed other municipal practices and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) standards

 What are other municipalities doing?

• Many municipalities are reviewing Zoning By-law standards to reduce parking demand and reliance on single-occupancy vehicles
• Reduce parking minimums
• Remove parking minimums
• Implementing parking maximum
• Including carshare provisions, bicycle parking and shared parking systems

 Slide 11

• There are no proposed changes for parking rates for single detached, semi-detaches or on-street townhouses
• One parking space is required and it must be setback 6 metres from the front property line and be behind the front wall of the house. In new builds, this is usually the parking space within a garage. This in effect creates 2 parking spaces per dwelling, one in the garage and one in the driveway. 

Slide 12

• This slide highlights the proposed requirements for an Apartment building. The existing rate is (read bullet)
• Through the off-street parking demand survey, we observed lower rates, while the ITE has rates are closer to the existing rates
• Comparator municipalities generally had lower rates than the existing rate for Guelph
• These factors led to the recommendation to slightly reduce the minimum, and have a maximum to provide some flexibility based on market needs but not to encourage over supply

This means that a 100 unit apartment building would require 130 parking spaces today.

The proposed bylaw would reduce this minimum requirement to 117 parking spaces within the city and there is no maximum rate city-wide so a developer could provide excess parking if the market demands required it. 

Within intensification areas the proposed bylaw would reduce the minimum parking requirement to 110 parking spaces and apply a maximum rate of 150 parking spaces. The maximum rate is set high enough to provide some flexibility to ensure market demands can be met.   

 Slide 13

 Parking rates for cluster, stacked and back-to-back and townhouse uses are remaining at 1 parking space per unit for both intensification areas and the rest of the city. In this case we have added a visitor parking requirement of 0.2 spaces per unit to ensure enough visitor parking is required. 

Slide 14

• This slide highlights the proposed requirements for retail uses. 
• This is an example of a non-residential use where the observed rates were much lower than the existing bylaw rate. Even the ITE rate is much lower than the existing minimum rate
• This information provided justification to reduce both the minimum and to impose a lower maximum in mixed-use areas. Providing a maximum similar to the rate in other areas of the city provides flexibility to businesses to provide more parking if needed. 

Slide 15

We received a lot of feedback on the proposed driveway width regulations. We heard from residents and Council that driveway widths need to be wide enough to meet the needs of residents, and that is often two vehicles parked side by side in the driveway. We also heard that some residents are concerned that entire front lawns will be paved over, reducing tree canopy and front yard landscaping. 

We’ve revised the recommendation from the Parking Discussion Paper, which proposed that driveways would be permitted to be 50% of the dwelling width. In a lot of cases, this would have reduced driveway widths from what is currently allowed under the existing ZBL. The draft ZBL proposes a hybrid approach for semi-detached dwellings and on-street townhouses that allow a driveway width to be 50% of the lot width, to a maximum defined width based on the type of property. 

For example, it is proposed that a semi-detached dwelling could have a driveway that is 50% of the lot width, to a maximum of 5 metres, whichever is less. This allows flexibility for larger lot semi-detached dwellings that can accommodate a 5 metre wide driveway while also providing 50% of the front yard landscaped. Currently, all semi-detached dwellings are limited to a 3.5 metre wide driveway. These draft regulations represent a balanced approach that takes into consideration both the need to provide parking spaces and the need to provide landscaping, street trees, on-street parking and adequate lot drainage. The proposed regulations are also property specific rather than a blanket requirement within a zone. 

Our intent with the proposed driveway regulations was not to further limit driveway widths than what the existing ZBL allows. The RL.2 zone is proposed to maintain the existing permission for 5 metre wide driveways for single detached dwellings in line with the current R.1D regulations. 

We have several policies within the Official Plan that support the proposed approach to driveway widths, including urban design policies to encourage the retention of vegetation in front yards along residential streets, to maintain and increase tree canopy cover within the city, and create pedestrian oriented streetscapes with landscaped boulevards and on-street parking.

Slide 16

Slide 17

The draft zoning bylaw proposes bicycle parking requirements city-wide. 

This is an important component of providing transportation choice and implementing a balanced system, tied directly to sustainable development.   Contemporary zoning approaches establish requirements for short term and long term bicycle parking spaces for multi-unit residential buildings, mixed-use buildings, commercial, institutional and employment uses.
Long term bicycle parking spaces are those in sheltered locations, such as a parking garage or internal storage room in a mixed-use building, that are available for tenants and occupants for longer parking durations (i.e. through the workday or overnight).  Short term bicycle parking spaces provide spaces for quicker trips, such as shopping or visiting, and would be outside, at grade. 

We have not proposed bicycle parking space dimensions in the draft bylaw to allow for flexibility in the types of bicycle racks that could be used. This would be reviewed during the Site Plan process to make sure systems used are accessible and user friendly.  

Slide 18

• The draft zoning bylaw introduces electric vehicle parking spaces which is brand new to the bylaw. The draft bylaw requires:

Residential:

20% apartment or mixed-use buildings within (PA) areas will be provided as electric vehicle parking spaces

80% apartment buildings, cluster townhouses and mixed-use buildings will be designed electric vehicle parking spaces

Non-residential:

10% electric vehicle parking spaces and 20% designed electric vehicle parking spaces

• Electric vehicle parking space means constructed to the minimum standards with the charging device in place 
• Designed electric vehicle parking space means constructed to be ready for future installation of electric vehicle supply equipment
• the Government of Canada is setting a mandatory target for all new light-duty cars and passenger trucks sales to be zero-emission by 2035. It’s important for Guelph start to include the infrastructure in buildings at the time of construction to be future ready and reduce the costly upgrades that will be required in the future to respond to residents needs. 

Slide 19

Slide 20

Interactive online mapping is available. I would encourage everyone to take the time to look up your zone to see if your zone is changing. 

 The online map includes a swipe feature that allows you to compare the proposed zone to the existing zone on the same map. You can use the search bar to look up a property by address. The overlays are also available to be turned on and off through the layers feature. 

We’ve created a story board to walk the public through the map features and how to look up a property. This story board also links directly to the draft bylaw.

Slide 21

I’ll pass the presentation over to Andrew now to provide instructions for asking questions.