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That north Oakville parking problem…what were they thinking?

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Kim Arnott’s excellent summary of the current situation in north Oakville  brought back vivid memories of debates at Oakville Town Council in the years 2003-2006 when much of this part of Oakville was added to the Official Plan.  

OakPark in River Oaks is an example of the town
OakPark in River Oaks is an example of the town's commitment to new urbanism. | Oakville News

The Province had assigned Oakville its share of future population growth.  Both the Province and the Municipalities, including Halton and Oakville, were facing the need to provide housing for tens of thousands more people.  Farmland would be developed to accommodate these new arrivals north of Dundas Street and up to the 407.  

If this development followed the pattern and density of the existing Town of Oakville, it would bring all kinds of challenges:

  • Tens of thousands of cars
  • More and more land under pavement for roads, driveways and parking lots, reducing greenspace and farmland and adding to flooding risks
  • The need for existing arteries and major highways to be enlarged to handle the new traffic, probably necessitating expropriation of private property
  • Hours of personal and family time lost to commuting
  • More pollution and greenhouse gas emissions
  • Too little population density to support frequent or convenient public transport, resulting in half empty buses that need to be subsidised by taxpayers

All over North America there were examples of development following the traditional, unrestricted, short-term market-driven model of urban sprawl.  One of the more egregious was Houston, which experiences all these problems, including such severe flooding that it regularly interferes with living and commerce.

The Province telegraphed its goal of dramatically increased density to save greenspace, ultimately passing the Places to Grow Act in 2005. The greater density would support convenient public transport that could pay for itself from the fare box and would dramatically reduce the need for private cars.  The Oakvillegreen Conservation Association fought valiantly for the preservation of as much green-space as possible, including a natural heritage system that would preserve the plant species and the migratory pathways of the creatures who inhabited the area, thus preserving biodiversity and retaining more permeable land.

Faced with these pressures to deliver compact development, and the lobbying of the development industry wanting the resulting housing product to be marketable, the town sought out help from one of the most respected urban planners in the world, Andres Duany, to guide our planning and create a new urban environment which would address all these goals and challenges.

North Oakville was based on new urbanism where people would be able to shop and work in their own neighbourhood, and thereby eliminating the need of households to own 2 cars. | Oakville News
North Oakville was based on new urbanism where people would be able to shop and work in their own neighbourhood, and thereby eliminating the need of households to own 2 cars. | Oakville News

The vision emerged of intimate neighbourhoods of mixed housing types and employment uses, at a much higher density than obtained in the rest of the Town.  Each home would be no more than a ten-minute walk from a bus stop, which would be located in a village square with a coffee shop, neighbourhood merchants, and a pub or restaurant.  A significant percentage of residents would walk to the bus stop, crossing paths with their neighbours, and by the time they had bought a coffee the bus would be there.  The frequency of buses and the density would mean the bus would be well used, most of its costs covered by modest fares, justifying the frequency in a virtuous cycle.   Sometimes, on their return from work, commuters would stop for a convivial drink in a neighbourhood pub as a transition before the short walk home. Such residents would likely have a family car to manage the kids’ activities, grocery shopping, or family outings and vacation trips.  Most of everything else they needed would be within walking or cycling distance, on a convenient bus route, or available within an inexpensive taxi ride.  

If it all sounds like wishful thinking, it’s worth pointing out that urban areas built before the motor car, and even before people started having more than one car per family, actually look a lot like this, and do work.  Many neighbourhoods in the old City of Toronto, developed before widespread car ownership, are occupied by families with one or even no cars, and residents use streetcars and buses to get around…stopping at venerable lunch counters for coffee in the morning and cozy neighbourhood pubs and restaurants at the end of the day.  The absence of cars in the first half of the twentieth century dictated the need for proximity to work and play and the resulting density supported good public transit.  Closer to home, Old Oakville residents live within walking distance of the main street with its cafes, restaurants and boutiques, and a short bus ride to the train station for longer trips:  because these neighbourhoods first grew up before the multi-car family was an affordable option for most people.  

My first home in Old Oakville | Chris Stoate
My first home in Old Oakville | Chris Stoate

My first Old Oakville house had parking for about half a car but was an easy walk to shopping and the Go station.  We could walk our daughter to school and to dance lessons, but needed the car for skating, soccer and weekend activities.  Visitors parked in the street, in nearby municipal parking lots, or at neighbours with bigger driveways.

More recently, in Oakville and Toronto, condominium buildings create density and the apartments, often very expensive, come with one car parking:  residents know that when they buy them, and if they need more parking they either don’t buy them, pay significantly more for extra spots, or use streetcars, buses, the subway, shuttle services, taxis, Uber and Lyft.

This was the planning rationale for Oakville north of Dundas.  Buyers would know what they were buying into just as condominium apartment buyers do.

So, what went wrong?

For one thing, the demand for housing grew even more rapidly than what many already view as “too much too fast” development could keep up with.  This meant little opportunity for buyer due diligence.  As units go on sale, the fear of missing out means no time for asking questions like how much parking is there for me or where do visitors park.  Developers are not so much selling homes as allocating them.  The buyer has to take what they can get. 

Jeff Knoll | Jeff Knoll
Jeff Knoll | Jeff Knoll

According to Town and Regional Councillor Jeff Knoll, “It’s probably fair to say that this pressure to act means that many people, making the largest investment they will make in their lives, move more quickly and with less investigation than if they were buying a new Smart TV, suppressing their doubts to make sure they get into the market.”

Certainly, they knew how much parking their own home would have and so they share some responsibility for making the purchase.  But the association people have with Oakville, their visions of suburban living, are far from the downtown walkable village neighbourhood of the new urbanist ideal.  And salespeople pointed out the availability of street permits, which are a practical option provided not everyone wants one…which they did.  So, expectations come up against reality when people move in.  The contents were on the label, but in very small print:  sellers didn’t flag it and buyers didn’t take the time to read it.

Live-work communities

The new urbanist model envisages at least some of the residents in most homes being able to get to work in fairly close proximity, via transit or on foot.  This means that employment lands need to be developed in parallel with residential growth.  The demand for employment development has not been nearly as robust as that for residential.  In fact, the Town has regularly to fight the pressure to rezone commercial land as residential.  Efforts to attract new employers have not been as successful as originally envisaged.  (Some local politicians too cling to the idea of Oakville as a Connecticut-style bedroom community, so economic development may not always get the priority it needs.)  The result is that even with good proximity to frequent transit options, a resident may have to switch between multiple buses and trains to get from home to work, which means even driving in heavy traffic is much more efficient.

Shopping

The idea of the village square, a hub with local shops, cafes and a pub, has also had some difficulty getting traction in reality.  With people in cars, the demand is for drive through service on the commute…a vicious circle that compounds the problem.  Looking at the earliest community built along these lines in Oakville, Oak Park, we find a car dealership and a Walmart.  These kinds of development applications are clearly not in line with the vision for the community and undermine its rationale.   

© OpenStreetMap contributors (CC BY-SA 2.0)
© OpenStreetMap contributors (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Yet planners recommend town council accept them.  

The argument is that these are transitional uses that will be required until the new vision takes hold.  In any case, councillors are told, the applications would be appealed to the province at Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT)  formerly known as Ontario Municipal Board.  The developer would win and the town would have wasted vast amounts of money in its attempt to stay true to the planning principles. Ironically, the province had imposed those on the town in the first place.  This is not helped by changing priorities at the province as parties move in and out of government.  (Perhaps it smacks of cynicism also to note that municipal planners sometimes find lucrative second careers in the development community.)

The huge parking lot surrounding the Walmart by Oak Park was not supposed to be part of this planned development. | Oakville News
The huge parking lot surrounding the Walmart by Oak Park was not supposed to be part of this planned development. | Oakville News

The result is that instead of pedestrian-friendly shopping in neighbourhood stores we have yet another reason why residents can legitimately argue they need to own and park more cars.  

Meanwhile, in the mixed housing planned for the area, for profitability reasons, developers tend to build the lowest density first.  Had they built the higher density first, it would have built the demand for local commerce and for transit.  The Town too can be faulted for not following the “transit first” imperative of this type of community vision, although limited traditional transit and a flexible “home to hub” solution are now in place.  

Is there hope?

It is simply not compatible with the expected growth of our community to go back to the urban sprawl car-dependent model that spurred its growth in the latter half of the 20th century.  The fact is that small driveways and limited parking do put an ultimate brake on the number of cars per capita:  a family with three children simply can’t and won’t let each one have a car once they reach driving age, because there is just nowhere to put them.  This is the personal impact of the limitations that must be put on vehicle ownership and usage to avoid paving over greenspace and farmland and consigning us all to gridlock.  So, planners are right to stick to their principles on this.  The parking problems of north Oakville are intentional because they have to be.

However, the fact is that with the current model of individual car ownership, most cars are parked 95% of the time.  This is incredibly inefficient and expensive.  Idle vehicles require more of the world to be paved over.  Operating one’s own car requires management, planning maintenance, tire changes and fuel, insurance, and eventually replacement.  This is simply money out the door, with nothing to show for it.  People who live in older denser neighbourhoods in cities, with one car per family, have long realized that taxis, and now Uber and Lyft, are just as convenient and much more cost effective.  Car sharing services like Zipcar and the traditional car rental companies meet their needs for multi-day trips or especially long outings.  Sharing means fewer vehicles altogether, and the cars these services use are in motion much more of the time, as they have multiple users, so they are not taking up nearly as much parking space.   The money they save goes into better located or larger housing…which means instead of being gone forever it appreciates.  

There is reason to believe that economics too will help facilitate the control of vehicle ownership proliferation.  While it is still difficult for a family to justify the purchase of an electric vehicle, because fuel savings cannot offset the higher price tag, a car sharing service like Uber, where vehicles are in constant use, will save much more in fuel, maintenance and replacement frequency, and can operate electric vehicles much more cheaply per kilometer.  Summoning taxis or ride-sharing services will only become cheaper as self-driving vehicles become viable.  According to the CAA Driving Cost Calculator, even driving only 10,000 km per year, owning and operating a ten-year-old Honda Civic will cost you nearly $600 per month: and that does not include parking fees.  That pays for a lot of Ubers and rental cars over the course of the year.

CAA Driving Cost Calculator | CAA
CAA Driving Cost Calculator | CAA
What can we do?

This situation can be improved by residents embracing the vision for compact, village-like communities.  That means both changing behaviour and pressuring the Town to work towards fulfilling the original vision.

In terms of behaviour change, it means seeking employment that reduces your need for a car.  (Maybe it even means opening a shop, café or pub in a village square.)  It means learning to use alternate modes of transportation, walking, cycling, taking the bus, using taxis and ridesharing and occasionally renting a car instead of owning one.  The Covid-accelerated trend to work-from-home is very supportive of this objective.

In terms of lobbying your elected officials, it means:

  • Encouraging them to seek out commercial development that is compatible with the vision:  neighbourhood shops rather than big box stores
  • Pressuring them to increase economic development efforts to increase employment options accessible on foot or by transit:  more support for Invest Oakville the town's economic development office and cooperation with the Oakville Chamber of Commerce  
  • Fighting for more frequent bus service and more routes. 
  • Asking them to find ways to help taxi and ride-sharing companies build capacity in these neighbourhoods so that for many residents there are multiple convenient and economical alternatives to car ownership  

The capacity may have to precede the demand, just as we try to build the infrastructure for sewers and roads before the housing goes in…and should do with schools, parks and community centres.

What it doesn’t mean is fighting for more parking options or encouraging multi-storey lots for residents and visitors to accommodate multiple private cars.  All that can lead to is more traffic, more demand to pave more roads and consume more green-space, and pressure for future development to return to the urban sprawl which is simply unsustainable with the rates of population growth we anticipate in our town.