Time is running out for illegal parking lots in central Edmonton, but at least one developer has taken steps to keep their surface parking for the short-term ahead of the June 30 deadline.<\/p>\n
On Monday council voted 12-0, with Ward O-Day\u2019min Coun. Anne Stevenson, excluding herself due to pecuniary interest, to rezone six lots located at 115 Street NW and Jasper Avenue, enabling the developers, Greenlong Construction Inc. and Stantec Consulting Ltd., to continue using it as a parking lot while proceeding with plans to build two high rises with up to 905 residential units on the lots.<\/p>\n
By doing so, the parking lot becomes one of 62 of 113 city centre surface lots to request a valid permit. The city estimates there are at least 275 of these parking lots within Edmonton.<\/p>\n
Mayor Andrew Knack said the bylaw would proceed to the enforcement stage for any owners of parking lots with outstanding paperwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to follow the rules, if they\u2019re not following the rules, they should not be able to operate it in that way,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re not in compliance with the use, there would be fines associated to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials told Postmedia enforcement could be further escalated to stop orders, violation notices and even blocking access to the land.<\/p>\n
A 2023 report to council found 11 per cent of parking lots were operating with a permit. Council gave property owners 18 months to rectify the situation, which included requirements to plant trees and shrubs around the outside of lots, ensure there is proper drainage and stalls are accessible, and to install lighting and walkways through larger properties, with at least two metres of space required between roads and parking stalls. That 18-month window closes at the end of the month, but anyone who has been issued a temporary parking lot permit has an additional 18 months to implement required changes.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s only if they want to use the land as a parking lot temporarily \u2014 the new permit is only good until June 30, 2033, in the case of a gravel parking lot and 2037 years for a paved lot.\u00a0 After that, landowners will need to find a new use for their property.<\/p>\n
Ward papastew Coun. Michael Janz said the city isn\u2019t getting enough value out of surface parking lots and would be better off rezoning them for residential developments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a spot that could be homes, that could be a new business, so much more \u2014 literally anything more than what it is now,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the interim, we understand not everything gets built immediately overnight. Sometimes we have to make pragmatic concessions to move things forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Janz noted using the land Downtown for high rises or other residential would be a net benefit for ratepayers across the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s two towers that went in at University of Alberta besides Earls,\u201d he said. \u201cTogether, they\u2019re almost bringing in $2 million a year of tax revenue to the city. If we were to do 10 more of those, we\u2019d reduce your property tax by one per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
ebowling@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time is running out for illegal parking lots in central Edmonton, but at least one developer has taken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[52,34148],"class_list":["post-89754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-edmonton","tag-parking-lots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}