Sechelt council is looking at reconfiguring parking in downtown Sechelt to meet current and future parking needs.
Council asked staff in June of 2010 to bring forward a proposed parking plan, seeing the need for more parking options in the District. At the July 13 committee of the whole meeting, that plan was presented by community planner Andre Boel, who noted he was surprised at the number of parking spaces he found.
"I was impressed by the sheer number of parking spots available in the downtown area. There's a lot of parking in downtown; however it's not in the right location necessarily," Boel said.
Currently there are approximately 300 on-street parking spaces downtown with 1,650 private business stalls, making a total of 1,950 stalls available for parking on Teredo and Cowrie streets and Wharf and Inlet avenues.
The report found there is still room for parking expansion and suggested some private properties could be used for customer parking.
Councillors endorsed 12 of the 15 options brought forward by staff at last Wednesday's meeting. Those options included: shortening the yellow markings on curbs to limit no parking zones, using road right-of-ways for parking, dedicating tour bus parking near the visitor centre, increasing on-site parking at the time of redevelopment, painting parking stall markers for on-street parking, allowing loading and unloading only during quiet times of the day, introducing signage to highlight available off-street parking, encouraging parking in the rear of businesses, improving parking surfaces and ensuring zoning bylaw off-street parking requirements are met and parking is made available to customers.
The three options councillors didn't support were to introduce angled parking on Cowrie Street, to increase municipal parking by purchasing two vacant lots at the north west corner of Cowrie and Trail and to introduce paid parking.
"An excellent way to increase density is to go angle parking, and it's not as dangerous as people think. It's less dangerous than parallel parking," said Coun. Keith Thirkell.
Other councillors were not convinced angle parking was the way to go.
It seemed the price tag of $342,000 to purchase a new parking lot was not well received either, and no one was on board with setting up paid parking in the District.
Director of corporate services Jo-Anne Frank said some of the options endorsed may need further work to be done by staff.
"Some will require further investigation and if there are budget issues or bylaw issues, individual reports will come forward to you at a later date," she noted.
The Sechelt Downtown Business Association (SDBA) hopes plans will be put into action soon.
"We do need more parking. It's something we've talked about at the revitalization committee and it certainly seems there is a need," said SDBA president Katharine Trueman.
In addition to more parking for cars, Coun. Warren Allan made a motion to increase the number of bicycle stalls in the District. He asked staff to look into additional parking for bikes and to promote the use of bike racks for cyclists.
