Guelph-Eramosa staff have recommended changes to the municipality’s parking regulations and the zoning bylaw amendment will be considered by council at a future meeting.
At the Sept. 8 regular council meeting, Guelph-Eramosa planning associate Kelsey Lang presented proposed changes and clarifications to township parking regulations.
The changes include clarifying wording of the regulations, ensuring regulations match permitted and defined uses and modifying regulations such as stall size, location, driveway widths and stacking for drive-thrus.
A few changes to the number of required parking spaces at buildings in the township include: two spaces for stacked or cluster townhouses (compared to the 1.3 spots required now), additional parking spaces for garden suites and accessory apartments, parking stalls for bed and breakfasts, using the floor area rather than the number of seats to determine the required number of parking spaces, and creating regulations based on consolidated uses (for example a furniture store, food store and specialty store will all use retail store regulations).
“Rather than having blanket regulations for the entire township no matter the use, we’re having different ones for residential or commercial or agricultural/ industrial because they have different types of uses in terms of their parking,” Lang explained.
Councillor David Wolk voiced concern surrounding the proposal to base the number of required parking spots on floor dimensions.
“In (the) case of some commercial activities, lumberyard and building materials, I mean we are basing the parking requirements on the footprint of the building that is on the site,” he said.
“Clearly in the case of some of the lumberyards and contracting yards the building is the small part of the activity; there’s a lot of outdoor activity. What do we do in that case?”
Lang responded, “Each type of use has a different parking requirement and those requirements are developed based on those types of things. “So … if you had a warehouse and a restaurant of the same size you knew the occupancy would be very different so the requirement based on the size is different.
“So when you talk about things like a lumberyard where we know the buildings will be smaller we make the requirement maybe a little higher because we expect the building won’t take up all the space versus a warehouse we know will take up most of the space.”
White clarified the number of spots required would reflect both the size and the use – “Which is great because this gives flexibility. This is what we’re trying to do.”
The Grand River Conservation Authority, Wellington County planning department and R.J Burnside did not have any concerns or objections to the application, Lang said.
However, the Upper Grand District School Board expressed concern over a proposed increase to the number of spots required for an assembly hall. Once it was clarified school gyms aren’t considered an assembly hall the concern was removed, Lang explained.
She also said the township received a public concern from a planning consultant on behalf of Charleston Homes and Drexler Construction.
There were some concerns regarding terminology, which Lang said will be clarified before the completed bylaw is brought to council for approval. She also said the consultant was concerned about the existing definition of a parking space. Presently the bylaw does not specifically identify a driveway as a parking space, but the new proposed bylaw will make the clarification.
Council will receive the amendment to the zoning bylaw’s parking regulations at a future meeting.
