Parking. We love and we hate and we have to deal it, and in downtown Guelph there are a lot of complications if you want to increase parking, or even if you don’t. In this latest council workshop, the horseshoe will look at the parking issues facing the core, and the ways that the might be overcome in the years to come by unpacking all the old challenges and some of the new ones.
NOTE #1: Delegates will be able to appear at this meeting in-person or via tele-presense but you do have to register with the clerks office before 10 am on Friday March 24. You can also submit written delegations and correspondences for agenda items.
NOTE #2: In addition to meeting in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.
NOTE #3: This meeting starts at the special time of 10 am.
Downtown Parking Master Plan Council Workshop – Council is going to hear about how parking demands have changed over the last few years because of the pandemic with a changed work environment, the growth of delivery services, the new embrace of patio services, and other changes downtown. Also, there are more changes coming in the years to come with the Co-operators moving out of downtown, a new library is coming, and so might (finally) two-way, all-day GO Train service.
As it stands, the plan now will see 1,905 total parking spaces downtown by the year 2026, that’s a net increase of 246 from 2015, but it’s far from the original 500 promised in a previous version of the plan. (For the record, there are 1,751 spaces downtown right now.) The problem presented to council can likely be summed up in terms of short-term and long-term issues; in the short-term, parking demands will continue to be low as we recover from the pandemic, but with more people moving downtown over the next 30 years those demands will definitely increase.
This presentation will not have much in the way of recommendations about the Master Plan, but it’s meant to lay the scene for the conversation by talking about the current specs of downtown parking, the issues being faced, the current parking plans on the books, and all the challenges coming in the short, medium and long-term. Engagement with the community and with council will continue through the spring and summer, and a final report will come to council for approval this September.
Guelph Politico 