“There’s nowhere to park downtown anymore” is a common refrain of longtime Squamish residents, but is there really an issue with finding a spot for the car in the district?
Parking was on council’s agenda at the community development standing committee Tuesday afternoon as the district begins early discussions to formulate a new, long-term district parking strategy.
The focus of much of the discussion was downtown parking.
“I think that parking has diminished over the years,” said Nancy McCartney of the Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association (DSBIA).
“I hear it just about on a daily basis. People are angry. They don’t know what to do and they don’t know where to go. They come downtown and they drive around and around.”
McCartney said construction vehicles and local residents parking on streets overnight are both issues that reduce parking for customers downtown.
The association has struck a parking committee and will survey their business owners on parking issues, according to Bianca Peters, DSBIA executive director.
Councillor Susan Chapelle, who works and lives downtown, said in other areas of the community, especially at this time of year, the availability of parking isn’t a huge issue but in the summer and looking ahead, it will be.
“Parking isn’t something that happens overnight,” she said. “We have to plan for the future of tourism and the amount of large projects we have coming into town are not going to be our residents coming down to park, it is going to be people from out of town who have to take a vehicle because we don’t have regional transit.”
Councillor Jason Blackman-Wulff said better enforcement of parking rules downtown would help maximize use of the spaces.
“We haven’t had to enforce it in the past because it was kind of one of those honour system things and because it didn’t matter,” he said.
“We also have to be careful with how we do parking because, in my view, I think that one of the key benefits of downtown Squamish and our brand of the district is that it is a walkable, vibrant downtown and if you oversupply with parking… it can really detract from that.”
Mayor Patricia Heintzman said she would like to see district staff working with developers so construction vehicles aren’t parking long-term in customer parking spots; putting handicap parking near the Cornerstone development at Cleveland Avenue and Victoria Street; district operations staff installing signs around downtown guiding people to area parking; and staff investigating leasing empty lots for interim parking.
The parking strategy will be coming back to a future council meeting, according to district staff.
