Much like housing needs, parking needs are very diverse. Some families have two cars. Some have none. Many folks who are renters, students, or low-income may not have a personal vehicle. Even if an infill has a garage, no one is required to park in their garage, and they may choose to park on the street. Much like our own homes, some people park in the garage, some people park on the street. Some people park on a driveway.
Parking is expensive, and garages are expensive. Underground parking can be prohibitively expensive. Sometimes it feels like we spend more time discussing housing and storage for cars, rather than housing for people, which can undermine our work in trying to make housing more affordable. Sometimes parking, not housing, is the problem and it doesn’t make sense to constrain housing because of parking.
While parking has been flexible since 2020 (Read more about open option parking here) almost every single project I've seen has parking. Some have garages, some have parking pads. Remember, builders are competing for sales or renters, and there is a recognition that if you want to attract tenants or buyers who have a car, you need to accommodate for a car. Ultimately, a builder wants to make their project appealing to renters or to buyers. Despite flexible parking requirements for six years, the overwhelming number of projects built in Edmonton have parking.
At any given time, roughly 30% of the population can’t drive and vehicle registration according to the government of Alberta for the last five years has been around 700,000 vehicles for a city of 1.15 million. Even removing minors, there are still over a hundred thousand Edmontonians who do not have a vehicle.
Parking in Edmonton has been dramatically overbuilt compared to other urban centres and open-option parking is a way to help create more bedrooms for people rather than bedrooms for cars. Any home right now could have a family of five and five vehicles. It could be two duplexes and have two homes. I just heard about one single family home in a neighbourhood with 12 cars. These are problems we need to address, regardless of the infill conversation.
As it stands, curb side street parking, not owned by anyone: first come first served to the general public. Should this require permits in future?
The City of Edmonton has parking demand management programs that can be implemented if there is an excess demand for street parking. I've heard of other municipalities who have purchased lots and then turned them into parking if required.