Surrey city council has adopted a city staff recommendation to reduce off-street parking spaces around market rental housing while the city continues to shoe-horn multi-family residential projects into Surrey.
A corporate report came before council Monday night (May 15) in which city staff advocated for bylaw amendments to support the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s aim to accelerate development and approval processes.
“This is actually very encouraging and will help us develop more rental in our communities so I’m very pleased to see this one as well,” Mayor Brenda Locke said.
Asked Tuesday how reducing parking can be good for renters, Locke said the intention is to get developers to build more market rental housing. “That is what is encouraging, we need to build more market rental in this city and parking is one of the issues that is holding them back. But it is very specific to those properties that are on rapid transit or transit, so anywhere around SkyTrain hubs, that kind of thing.”
She said Surrey is in “desperate need” to see “any kind” of rental housing built “so we have to do these things that encourage developers to do that. The cost for underground parking is extraordinary, so it’s one way to encourage that.”
“We’re seeing in big cities where they’re building housing with no parking at all. Vancouver’s already doing that, but lots of big cities are reducing their parking requirements and we’re nowhere near close to doing that but we are at a position now with SkyTrain, and with the increase in SkyTrain to be able to say we can build housing that doesn’t have the same parking demands for the developers.”
The report, by Surrey’s general manager of engineering Scott Neuman and Don Luymes, general manager of planning and development, notes that in 2021 council voted to reduce off-street parking requirements for multi-family residential developments along rapid transit corridors and for market rental developments.
Neuman and Luymes state in their report that regional and “city-led” parking studies show that present requirements “result in an oversupply of parking in multi-family developments along rapid transit corridors and in market rental developments.”
“Further review is currently underway to determine appropriate parking rates for rapid transit corridors and supporting transportation demand management measures,” they add, so proposed amendments to the Surrey zoning bylaw “are focused on the market rental developments only.”
Council passed first and second reading on the bylaw amendments and then set a public hearing for Monday, June 5 at 7 p.m.
READ ALSO: Surrey continues hard shift to multiple-family projects from single family
Meantime, according to a corporate report that also came before council Monday, from Surrey’s general manager of finance Kam Grewal, Surrey in the first quarter of 2023 saw a 38 per cent increase in new multi-family dwellings compared to a 44 per cent decrease in new single-family dwellings.
Neuman and Luymes’ report indicates amendments to parking minimums for market rental projects would see a reduction to 0.65 parking spaces per dwelling within the City Centre Plan area from 0.9 parking spaces per dwelling, and one parking space per dwelling unit outside of the City Centre Plan area from 1.3 spaces per dwelling with one or no bedrooms and 1.5 parking paces per dwelling unit with two or more bedrooms.
“The proposed reductions to parking minimums reflect the findings of the parking studies and will help to support expanded rental housing, achieve long-term transportation goals, promote increased transportation choices, reduce the need for parking variances, and create a consistent approach for both developers and city staff,” they state. “In addition, the proposed amendments will better streamline the rental development process and support the upcoming City application to CMHC’s Housing Accelerator Fund.”
Toward the end of Monday’s council meeting, Coun. Linda Annis presented a notice of motion concerning Surrey’s “significant” shortage or rental housing stock, with one rental unit for every 83 residents compared to one for every 21 residents in the rest of Metro Vancouver. Eighty-eight per cent of renters in Surrey live in “secondary stock,” she said, while not-for-profit organizations are prepared to build “affordable non-market housing to help address this need.
“Current development application bylaws and processes are impeding not-for-profits financially from building not-for-profit housing,” Annis said. “I’m therefore making the following notice of motion that staff review the current development application procedures, policies and report back to council with amendments on fast-tracking applications for not-for-profit rental housing and reduction of permitting fees and community amenity fees.”
This will be dealt with at council’s next meeting, on June 5.
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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