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Ottawa City Council’s Planning and Housing Committee and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee met on December 17 in a joint meeting to discuss the final draft of Ottawa’s new Zoning By-law.
Diagram from the City's Bike Parking Strategy, a solid document for bike parking, but on public property.
This time around, however, we learned that staff had proposed undoing some of the gains made on bike parking, which is of course critical to transitioning our city from car dependency to sustainability. We were lined up to make a delegation on the issue, but unfortunately owing to scheduling conflicts, we weren’t able to deliver the delegation. But we’re providing the delegation text below to raise awareness of the issue.
We encourage you to contact your councillor on this issue. We've prepared some language to help you!
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We’re concerned about changes to bike-parking provisions, both those between Drafts 1 and 2 and staff’s proposals in Document 4. We’re asking that you reject staff’s proposed changes and restore the provisions found in Draft 1 of the draft Zoning By-law.
To summarize the changes proposed in the bylaw:
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Reducing bike-parking minimums in
- 1) residential buildings of 5 to 12 units (long-term)
- 2) retirement homes (short-term)
- 3) gas bars with retail areas (short-term)
- 4) instructional facilities, personal services, restaurant, and retail stores of less than 1000 m2 (short-term)
- 5) retail stores of 1,000 m2 or greater (short-term)
- Imposing maximums at retail store of 1,000 m2 or greater
These proposals certainly aren’t heading in the right direction. Our Official Plan, which was the subject of extensive public consultation, commits to shifting modal share significantly to sustainable modes—like biking. And bike parking is key to that: people won’t bike to locations if they think there may not be parking for them. And they may not move to new buildings if there’s not enough bike parking for them—or even their loved ones to visit them.
Staff include a number of recommendations in Document 4, all of which should be rejected. I’ll deal with these individually.
First, allowing required bike parking to be further from a building entrance. This ignores that for many, bikes are accessibility devices in a case of disability. This has been my own case with several different injuries—that is, short-term disabilities. Biking is the simplest way to get around, but a long walk from bike parking to the building is painful or even prohibitive. This is also a question of security: parking close to an entrance means there are more eyes on it.
Staff reason that in urban settings, there’s typically bike parking nearby. “Typically” won’t cut it for a bylaw: what if it’s not already there? Moreover, when a new building is erected, there’s de facto more demand for bike parking, so it should be increased correspondingly—particularly in urban settings, where biking is a larger proportion of the modal share. And what about non-urban settings, where such bike parking is lacking? This reasoning is very weak, to say the least.
Second, eliminating the requirement for an awning over short-term bike parking at residential buildings. One aspect of adequate bike parking is that it be protected from the elements, whether for comfort—no one wants to ride on a wet seat—or the state of components, which of course can rust. Staff reason that this could be difficult to comply with, but that’s not in itself adequate justification to not make these provisions.
Third, allowing long-term bike-parking to be located outside of a building. This, too, would substantially mitigate the security of the parking in question. Would you move into a place if you knew you couldn’t safely store your main mode of transportation? Bike parking in a building, by contrast, is for this fact subject to the same security regime as the building itself.
Fourth, dropping the short-term parking rates for buildings with 13 or more residential units, residential care facilities, and retirement homes. Let’s recall that these facilities regularly receive deliveries, for example, and visit from loved ones. And as our modal share shifts to sustainable modes, this parking will increasingly be necessary.
Fifth, a shift in long-term bike parking for Outer Urban and Suburban transects to 0.75 per unit. Again, this contradicts our modal shift goals. To take Toronto, for example, even in their furthest suburbs, they require 1.4 spaces per unit. I imagine Montreal would be similar or better.
Finally, we want to challenge staff’s rationale for these changes. In one case, staff observe that “the proposed short-term parking rate for residential uses would require a significant increase in visitor bike parking.” Yet shockingly, they seem to mean this as a bad thing—despite the fact that this aligns with our goals in the Official Plan.
In many cases, moreover, their rationale begins, “Based on discussions with industry.” It’s good that they consulted industry—it would be helpful to know which industry—but there are many other stakeholders beyond industry. What about the community, those who will live in these buildings? What about advocacy groups, who understand the intricacies of bike use, and who helped developing the City’s quite good Bike Parking Strategy? Staff should be listening to the entire community, all those affected by these decisions, not just a single group.
Thank you.
