City councillors decided on Monday that fewer parking spaces are needed for new developments in Kelowna.
City staff said that the new regulations will replace decades-old policies that focused on an auto-oriented approach and will now incorporate a number of city initiatives including the Car-sharing strategy, Kelowna Housing Strategy, Community Climate Action Plan, Imagine Kelowna, and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan.
The proposal includes lowering the current parking requirements for some new developments, including new commercial businesses and all-rental housing projects and offering incentives for developments that provide parking for car-sharing vehicles.
While old regulations required developers to provide one or more parking stalls per unit depending on size in certain zoning regulations, new regulations would require 0.8 and 0.9 stalls for studio and one-bedroom apartments and one stall for anything larger. For each car share stall, developers would be able to nix five parking stalls, up to a 20 per cent reduction. Rental only developments would also be allowed to reduce parking rates by 20 per cent in the urban centre and 10 per cent in the rest of the city.
In the proposal, tandem parking stalls would be allowed only in single dwelling housing (which may be in tandem with a secondary suite or carriage house); short-term rental accommodations; two dwelling housing; and townhouses in the urban core.
The public will get an opportunity to voice its opinion on the proposal during a public hearing set for Oct. 22.
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