Thousands of new homes are in the planning process for North Oakville, as the town spreads up to Highway 407.
During a single meeting earlier this month, Oakville councillors considered plans for two new subdivisions located to the southeast of Burnhamthorpe Road West and Neyagawa Boulevard.
Developers are proposing about 375 detached homes, 430 townhouses and at least 15 apartment buildings ranging in height from four to 12 storeys, as well as a school and commercial developments.
Those latest proposals join a patchwork of about a half-dozen other large-scale developments currently under consideration for the remaining vacant lands in North Oakville.
And while exact subdivision layouts have yet to be firmed up, it’s clear that the new developments will look much like what has already been built north of Dundas Street.
Designs feature dense developments, narrow streets, lane-based townhouses, back-to-back designs, mixed-use apartments, live-work units and mid- to high-rise apartments.
And they will all be built with the same parking standards that have led to endless parking woes for residents living in existing North Oakville homes.
Parking report two years overdue
In the spring of 2019, town councillors asked staff to report back on ways to deal with parking problems in the area.
While a parking study was scheduled to be completed by spring 2020, the town hadn’t even hired a consultant by the fall of that year.
At that time, Ward 7 councillors Pavan Parmar and Jasvinder Sandhu were hopeful the study would result in changes to current North Oakville parking standards.
They believe those standards – which generally range from between one and two parking spots per residential unit – are too low.
The rules, which counts garages as parking spaces, require developers to build less parking than anywhere else in Oakville.
During the March 7 planning and development meeting where councillors discussed the latest two proposed subdivisions, Parmar asked for a status update on the parking study.
"When will that study be finalized and will we have enough time to incorporate those finding into these plans to make sure that we’re doing the best we can to provide adequate parking in our new subdivisions?"
A convoluted answer from director of planning Gabe Charles, the town’s director of planning, amounted to a no.
"The parking study is currently underway," he said, adding it would be unlikely to come before council before June.
"That said, if we are coming back towards the later part of this year, we would then be looking at what recommendations are coming out of that parking study and therefore, do we need to make further changes to our zoning bylaw regulations, so that would probably be well into next year."
Charles did add that final recommendation reports on the two latest subdivisions were unlikely to be considered by council before June.
According to the town’s website, there are currently 20 active development applications in Ward 7, collectively representing thousands of new units that will all likely be built under the existing North Oakville parking standards.
Where will teachers park?
While changing parking standards won’t save these developments, the Ward 7 councillors continue to push for changes to address problems that have plagued new communities.
Sandhu urged town planners to take a hard look at school parking requirements.
School staff have been a consistent source of parking woes in North Oakville, with teachers filling up on-street spots once school lots are full.
Portables – which add extra teachers and other staff to the school population but don’t increase the required number of school parking spaces – exacerbate the problem, she noted.
The school board isn’t typically required to provide parking for portables, as they are “theoretically temporary,” said town planner Rob Thun.
He said he is reviewing that approach, given that portables may generate additional support staff beyond teachers, such as early childhood educators.
"I have been led to believe through personal discussions that some classrooms could have three or four, I’ll call them teachers," he said. "So, if we have those on a multitude of classrooms, you’re correct in saying that we do have a concern with parking."
Sandhu also noted that while portables may be temporary buildings, they are likely to be part of North Oakville’s school landscape "for a very, very long time."
Where will visitors park?
Parmar took aim at the need for visitor parking to be provided with apartment buildings.
"We know that when we get into these more intensified areas, and especially with apartment buildings, sometimes the spill of visitor parking falls into the surrounding community," she said.
She also asked the planners to consider access to driveways and street parking, particularly for double-frontage townhouses and those on laneways.
"I’ve just accepted that people are not using their garages for parking their vehicles these days, they are using it for storage," she said.
After the meeting she told Oakville News that condominium roads in new developments are particularly problematic.
"I notice most complaints come from condominium roads in subdivisions where the roads are too narrow for street parking and visitor parking spills out into surrounding streets," she said.
Shared parking arrangement "isn’t working"
Councillor Sandhu also suggested that new work-from-home arrangements arising from the pandemic have exacerbated parking problems, particularly for commercial units.
The original vision for reduced parking requirements in North Oakville imagined storefronts relying on daytime street parking, with residents shifting into those spots in the evening. But that hasn't become reality.
As a result, Sandhu questioned plans to build additional live-work units, which feature apartments above commercial storefront units.
"We see a constant kind of push and pull with live-works around the ward and not having enough parking for patrons of those units because residents, quite frankly, or teachers, are taking those spots," she said.
"I would challenge staff to go back and ask some questions about how that use exactly is going to look. I don’t think, particularly in Ward 7, that the usage option really works."