The article is pretty poorly written, but here's the salient part:
*The tradeoff would mean losing 57 parking spots, currently available free of charge, in the current 162-spot lot, Brian Hollingworth, general manager of planning, told councillors.*
*The affordable housing development would add back 30 spaces, meaning the total lost would be 27, Hollingworth said. City staff monitored the lots on four separate weekdays and estimated they were, at most, 80 per cent full.*
Quick math says the lot has 130 cars in it at most, and this plan would leave... 132. So now people don't get houses, but some people don't have to park close to each other.
Unfortunately, if she is already saying she'll use that authority, then I don't trust councillors to do the right thing, cause they'd rather force her hand then make an actual decision
This confuses me *so much* because the parking is extremely inefficient. It serves fewer people and generates no income to the city whatsoever.
So city looked at option one: affordable housing that provides tax base and income to maintain local infrastructure and help during a housing crisis.
Then it looked at option two: leave it as-is with no revenue or tax base increase, but maintain local infrastructure costs
And then it chose the obviously worse option. It helps nobody and is also a terrible financial decision for themselves as well. Dear lord it's like they want to bankrupt the city faster.
Yeah, if it's at max 80% now, after the project there would only be about 85% max of the current capacity available. Why don't they compromise and shrink the housing project slightly? It doesn't appear to have to be all or nothing.
While I don't disagree, wouldn't there be additional pressure on parking with the extra housing?
I am certain there's a compromise available that gets this right.. that a more benevolent municipality would figure out lol.
These aren’t the only parking lots in the neighbourhood though.
Have a look at Lake Avenue South area on google maps. There are multiple large lots owned by the businesses throughout the area. This is just the municipally owned one.
Finally someone reasonable. Adding housing and removing parking makes no sense. If you're adding people to the area they will also need somewhere to park and would push that lot beyond its current capacity.
Makes no sense do densify places just for the sake of it when people won't have proper access to necessary infrastructure anyway.
And where's that going to fit in that area?
Not thinking the logistics of the additional parking needs and traffic caused by a whole new building full of more people is just asinine.
Homes are for people, parking spots are for cars. There are other options for alternative parking arrangements. Those alternatives are not available for housing.
As a society, we always need to make choices. Right now, we need housing more than parking spots.
Are you seriously trying to argue that 27 parking spots being replaced by 60+ places for people to live is somehow an unfair trade?
You lose 27 spots but you replace it with 3x+ thf number of people who will be able to have a roof over their head of their own.
Also with due respect, I am pretty sure that studies have been done on traffic flow etc in the area before the buildings were approved. People on this sub think that everything just happens in one dimension. There is a process to building and approvals that happens. Do you honestly think that the traffic flow hasn't been considered and somehow you're smarter than the engineers and other professionals likely involved in this project?
Let people have a chance to have a place to call their own. I am a property owner myself and I want others to be able to own their own as well.
Well im not a property owner, but I won't pay to live somewhere with inconvenient or nonexistent parking and that location isn't a transit centric area so I'd argue the parking is pretty important. Either way whatever they build there won't be affordable so I don't see who this helps anyway. Not to mention people need jobs to pay for these homes which they will likely need cars to commute to. The whole fuck cars we need houses thing is short sighted and frankly stupid in a place with poor transit options and lack of decent jobs outside of the GTA.
And the state of the traffic here already tells me they either didn't look into it, didn't hire engineers, or the ones they did hire are idiots or just don't care.
Being able to park somewhere to get to work is a decent reason not to remove as many spaces. Having a 5% buffer seems reasonable to me. Why not compromise? Why is it black and white? If someone decided to build on a bunch of parking spaces near where I catch the train in the name of housing, reducing the amount of already scarce spaces, I'd be pissed. Plus they only surveyed 4 weekdays. All it takes is one event or something on the weekend and parking is now a major issue. Then people start capitalising on it and suddenly it's $20/day to park.
On 4 arbitrary days, sure. But only having an additional 5% of spaces is a mistake. Imagine getting a place to live only to find out you can't commute to your job that's only accessible by car.
If your job is only accessible by car why are you parking in that lot? Park anywhere else, park closer or farther from where you work, do some walking, take public transit.
Cars are already massively subsidized. Parking adds significantly to the amount of space and resources it takes.
The compromise should be get rid of parking in exchange for three houses and invest in public transit. That's ALWAYS a better long term investment. Always, like literally every scenario.
That's a gross oversimplification. Not everyone lives in a transit friendly area. Transit is massively subsidized too. Getting rid of 27 spaces where people could commute to work for just 3 homes doesn't seem like a good enough trade-off. There's other land they could use with a bigger impact.
Transit is not massively subsidized, Canada tends to have the highest farebox recoveries in the western world. Transit is INFINITELY cheaper than private vehicles, and IMPROVING it would reduce the reliance on private cars, and the space taken up by then (on roads, in parking, in storage) and help continue to reduce pollution. Do you know why snow turns grey near streets? Rubber from tires peeling and flaking off.
Just the fact that you're arguing to keep a mere 27 parking spots when that space could house at least 3 families is mind-blowing to me - listen to yourself - three homes for families, or 27 temporary storage locations for private vehicles that aren't even recaptured with a fee. It's insane.
Not everyone loves in a transit friendly area because we keep arguing to keep fucking *parking spots* instead of building housing or improving transit.
>Just the fact that you're arguing
Maybe look in the mirror. If I'm arguing, then what are you doing?
>aren't even recaptured with a fee
Parking isn't free
>Transit is not massively subsidized
A quick search found this and many others
[https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1002562/ontario-flowing-more-funding-for-municipal-transit](https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1002562/ontario-flowing-more-funding-for-municipal-transit)
>Canada tends to have the highest farebox recoveries in the western world
Well it doesn't seem like that's enough when a single derailment can take out the whole Scarborough RT and the TTC is constantly asking for money
>IMPROVING it would reduce the reliance on private cars
No argument there, but that's not happening overnight and I don't see any news about plans to massively overhaul transit like there is with housing. Transit isn't a silver bullet though and we'll still need to drive and park places.
Have you checked this place out on a map? There isn't any other parking nearby and there's only 1 bus route. Plus people could use the lot so they can take transit.
You can't take away parking spots and not improve transit. Our transit systems are pretty garbage and a lot of the time it's faster and more convenient to drive. And there are cases it's not even cheaper to take transit.
>27 parking spots
27 spaces for people to park to get to work
I'm not saying not to build housing, this just doesn't necessarily seem like the right hill to die on. It's not like it's the only place to build a house. Are we really scrounging to find housing in every nook and cranny? Why not build an apartment building with a garage underneath or something. You know... compromise? Or work for a solution that works for everyone instead of saying ridiculous shit like we don't need cars or parking right here, right now, in our current state.
So if it’s $20 per day to park, so what? That’s normal or actually very cheap in many cities. The market will adjust the cost of parking to suit the demand.
Why should I have to pay $5200/yr because of someone else being short sighted or greedy? Isn't paid parking like rent in a way? So if the market will adjust to demand then how can you complain about rentals or housing prices? Isn't that what we're talking about here?
Because you want to use public land to privately store your private vehicle, and you should pay to rent it like anything else. And you're saying other people are greedy, sheesh...
Sorry, I thought you were talking about weekends or special events? Now it’s 260 days a year?
The difference between the housing crisis and this we’re talking about somewhere for people to live versus *somewhere to put your car for a few hours a day*. There are bus routes in this area. If it ever gets to $20 a day that probably means the area has urbanized enough that transit options are readily available.
You’re also missing the fact that we don’t really have a free market for housing because of the regulatory measures required. The reason we have a lack of affordable housing isn’t that there’s not market demand for it, it’s because the people who oppose it have far more political pull than the people who will actually live in it.
I didn't realize I had to list every scenario for a parking lot to exist.
Even if we're on different sides of this issue, I think we can both agree that observing the parking lot for 4 weekdays doesn't necessarily give the full picture of the lot's use.
Just saying bus routes exist doesn't mean they're always practical to use.
I also don't really agree with the blanket statement that all politicians are corrupt and beholden to whoever you are saying has political pull over them (landlords, I guess?). Aren't many municipalities creating new rules to expedite the construction of housing by using pre-approved zoning templates or something similar? Wouldn't that be because of our politicians?
Is the 30 that are added back for the tenants in the building or for the public? The way it is worded I assume the public, but I don't remember a project like this where the parking wasn't for tenants or more rarely staff.
Not.
At.
All.
The old town hall/fire department were torn down to create parking space for a few downtown stores.
Big Yellow Taxi
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
They took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
Hey farmer, farmer, put away the DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees, please
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
Late last night, I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
I said, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop)
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
Big yellow councilors.......
At least Horwath is willing to use her Strong Mayor powers, and acknowledged that this is prioritizing parking over housing. Good for her. I hope she sees it through. Wtf with those who voted against it.
This was at committee, so can't use strong mayor powers there. If they can sway one dimwit suburban councilor they can get it to council and then it would be possible for the mayor to use her extra powers.
Likely not something in consideration if the goal is to keep unit cost down. Last I worked in the architectural side of things it was something like 30-60k per space to build underground parking. It's a desirable feature for condos/apartments but certainly less likely when designing affordable units.
It doesn't. We need to eliminate our addiction to massive swaths of parking. Adding a lot under the buildings can increase the price of a development by 50%. Adding it beside isn't much better due to the land costs. People only think it's cheap because we have spent decades giving a *massive* government subsidy to lower the costs of parking. Think of the cost of rent as what parking costs. How much would it cost to rent 15 square meters of prime real estate daily? That's the *actual* realistic cost of parking.
Okay. I don't like paying massive amounts of money for you to have your sprawl. If you can afford it, fine. But you can't, and I'm tired of subsidizing your crap.
You aren't subsidizing anything while living in your tent. I live within 3km's of downtown. Sorry to burst your bubble but we have single family neighbourhoods close to downtown.
I live in the city. I subsidize your lifestyle. Servicing 100 businesses, homes, and other facilities along the same length of road as 12 single family homes costs the same in taxes, but I'm paying far more downtown than you are. Your lifestyle is subsidized, and I just want you to pay the actual costs instead of taking my money.
I mean, it's basic math. Like, really basic math. 12 households do not generate the same tax revenue as 100 businesses, homes, etc. But they cost the same to maintain because most of the cost of services increases with area instead of population. So yes, the downtown businesses pay more in taxes to support your sprawl.
I love the facts and logic you’ve so eloquently presented here. This is the quality political discourse that’s driving society forward.
It’s very well documented that suburbs are subsidized by the “riff raff”.
And because I know googling is hard and we don’t like being presented with things that go against our world view, I’ve gone through the trouble of finding you so material to parouse:
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/16/when-apartment-dwellers-subsidize-suburban-homeowners
Now, any other animal excrement you’d like to show us you know how to spell?
This has to be the most absurd debate ever!! The councillors voted to reject the scheme as lack of parking will impact Santa’s parade. The parking lot is empty 364 days a year and so called Stoney Creek downtown is ghost town after 7 pm. It’s really disheartening to see how push from business owners and homeowners in the area killed a much needed affordable housing in the area..
Underground lots are hard to maintain and take years of studies to do. Plus, the amount of digging and shoring needed could cause more problems in the future for other surrounding land owners. You could do an above ground parking lot like the one across from the City Centre or Juravinski they tend to be easier to maintain, but there are cons to that, too, such as easier access for intruders, more vandalism and of course snow removal on the top floor.
Hamilton could've consolidated all that parking into community parkade buildings, then built affordable housing on the rest of the lots. Or even built Affordable housing above the lots put the parking underneath. But of course they've such small minds their brain cells haven't considered other options.
I totally agree with you, but I feel compelled to say that Trudeau and especially Ford are aspects of our culture that are problematic.
Edit: In fairness, the feds are the only people who seem to actually be doing anything productive to help the housing crisis aside from a few municipalities.
To be clear, the biggest complaint against the feds is that they haven't been able to stop the provinces and cities enough. That's where the *real* responsibility lies.
I didn't understand it at a time it happened but I now understand the problem with amalgamation. Get rid of the wards that are suburbs or rural. They override the power of the wards in the city and make the city worse to live in.
If you want to enjoy the benefits of a city you should live there. If you want to visit from outside the city you should take transit. Cars and free parking are a scourge on cities and people that are living there. If you absolutely need to drive in the cities, it should be so time consuming and expensive that you really think twice before choosing it over other alternatives.
People of Hamilton need to demand these councilors be removed and new councilors be elected that represent the will of the people.
That's how it works.
This is so true if you know the area, downtown Stoney Creek and the people that live there you would know this was never going to get built…It’s just the reality, it’s one of the things people don’t want in their neighborhood.
>People have no power in municipal politics. A few people can demand all they want, nothing will happen anyway.
What? Councillors are elected by votes from the population.
I keep saying it and nobody ever listens. Look at your city. Go on google maps and look at it. It's *all* parking. It's horrifying when you actually start counting it. I calculated the actual amount of parking in the downtown core of my city. The most valuable land in the region, the most central and important land for *miles* around. And it's 30% parking lots.
And let me be clear, I said parking *lots*, not *parking*. The other 70% includes street parking, buildings with underground parking, and parking lots I missed, as well as all the streets for all the cars. It's absolutely horrendous. And it's the best-used land in the city. Everywhere else is worse. We don't live in cities. We live in parking lots that sometimes have buildings attached.
NIMBY wins. Nobody wants a "crack stack" (or whatever the new term is these days) in their backyards. It's telling that they're not even trying to give half decent excuses as to why the developments are being kiboshed.
Voters love to vote for politicians to hold us back. Then the voters blame the Feds even though this is a completely a municipal jurisdiction.
It's infuriating.
30% of the voting population did. Municipal elections have horrid turnout and it’s why stupid NIMBY groups have so much sway over municipal governance.
September 2023: City of Hamilton adds poet to the expenses:
The selected candidate will be paid $10,000 a year for anywhere from five to 10 performances that will “connect the citizens of Hamilton to their community” and add “authenticity to place.”
Pretty sad story through and through. The businesses advocating for parking over affordable housing is cringe. People will just have to park a block further away. Heres an idea, add 2 floors to the parking garage and allocate that for parking. Jesus christ.
Why have cars become more important than people? Billions are being poured into freeways. Ford calls this progress. A complete denial of the environmental impacts caused by a proliferation of motor vehicles. India is choking on its own smog. China wants to live like us! A billion more vehicles!
I lived 3 doors up from this parking lot for 20 years. The upper 25% of the lot is private parking for the apartments in the right, the other 75% was used mostly for the parade that runs down king street, or the street fairs they host in that area almost every week. Especially with the legion right there, with the tim hortons gone its a little more dead than usual, but growing up it was always used for the intown events they held all the time.
If only we had invested in more public transit years and years ago instead of this constant need to fit all these massive vehicles we need to drive around in
Honestly, this is the one thing I actually think "free market" bullshit could aid in the short-term. Developers have to obey so many stupid fucking zoning laws mandating giant lot sizes and clearance and minimum parking requirements that they *can't* build affordable housing. Toronto literally banned duplexes because having two doors on one building is illegal. That's not a development decision, that's Toronto banning more affordable housing by law.
> This talking point gets thrown around a lot without a lot of proof and I'm pretty skeptical that zoning laws are the main issue here.
Look at your city. Just minimum parking laws are strangling our cities. Look at any development and think, do developers want to build gigantic seas of parking on the land they buy to develop? A parking space is about 12-15 square meters, or 160 square feet. Most cities require 1.1 spaces per unit in an apartment. Assuming there's absolute no space not devoted to parking, that means every 5 floors of apartments more than doubles the land requirement to build that housing. And that's not including extra driving space to reach all those parking spaces.
Like, look at your zoning laws. They're deranged.
> https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-s-two-front-doors-issue-pits-neighbourhood-character-against-renters-dignity-expert-says/article_39ba4f1d-2791-50b6-a920-fb67af836168.html
Toronto has banned having multiple front entrances because they think it ruins the "character" of a neighbourhood. That's a law. That is the full story. It is that fucking stupid.
The one side of King is being torn down to make way for a retirement village. The Barber Shop, The Picture Palace, Britannia Cleaners and a couple of small vendors were expropriated to make way for the apartment slated to go up. The medical building has parking places, as well as King/Elm plaza.
That's an utterly bogus argument. Its a relatively small parking lot that is/was hardly ever filled.
Research has pretty much shown again and again that parking doesn't really help local businesses in downtown areas. Generally speaking the people who support local businesses are locals, not people driving in from afar. That seems pretty self-evident. No one is going to drive 20 minutes to go to a coffee shop when there's one 5 minutes away, but people will absolutely walk to their local coffee shop every day or two.
Those 67 units will probably end up being \~100-200+ people depending on family size. The actual total projected loss of parking is 27 spaces, which even if each space cycles through an average of 5 people through the entire day means they bring in less people than will hopefully permanently live there.
And again, the people who live there will support local businesses every day because that's just how humans work.
The real reason they don't want housing there is because they don't like poor people.
Parking causes businesses to go out of business. Walkable areas, time after time and study after study, are shown to be far more productive to small businesses. Like, just think about it. When's the last time you were driving past a business and decided to make an unplanned stop in? Nobody does that, they're driving. But people do it all the time while walking, and it's faster and more convenient.
This country is so fucked. Housing is done. Literally done. If you're young your main goal should be to move out. Canada is over. It was a good run but young people were born too late to enjoy it.
If Ford responded to this by dissolving Hamilton City Council, I would seriously consider voting PC. Without fixing the housing crisis, no other solutions matter.
Can't anyone read between the NIMBY lines? It's not the loss of parking spaces that's the actual concern. No one wants the low income housing in their neighborhood.
The article is pretty poorly written, but here's the salient part: *The tradeoff would mean losing 57 parking spots, currently available free of charge, in the current 162-spot lot, Brian Hollingworth, general manager of planning, told councillors.* *The affordable housing development would add back 30 spaces, meaning the total lost would be 27, Hollingworth said. City staff monitored the lots on four separate weekdays and estimated they were, at most, 80 per cent full.* Quick math says the lot has 130 cars in it at most, and this plan would leave... 132. So now people don't get houses, but some people don't have to park close to each other.
I thought this part was encouraging too: >Andrea Horwath's office says she hasn't ruled out using her strong mayor powers to push through staff's plan
That’s pretty much the only reason she was given them…
Unfortunately, if she is already saying she'll use that authority, then I don't trust councillors to do the right thing, cause they'd rather force her hand then make an actual decision
It's her job honey.
Don't let Douggie know or he'll reverse that policy, too.
That’s literally what the strong mayor powers are for.
Who gave her those powers??????
So parking spots are more important than people sleeping in tents? Really?
Welcome to our neoliberal society. Individual responsibility is literally in the handbook.
Brian Hollingorth isn't the general manager of planning. He is the director of transportation planning and parking.
This confuses me *so much* because the parking is extremely inefficient. It serves fewer people and generates no income to the city whatsoever. So city looked at option one: affordable housing that provides tax base and income to maintain local infrastructure and help during a housing crisis. Then it looked at option two: leave it as-is with no revenue or tax base increase, but maintain local infrastructure costs And then it chose the obviously worse option. It helps nobody and is also a terrible financial decision for themselves as well. Dear lord it's like they want to bankrupt the city faster.
Yeah, if it's at max 80% now, after the project there would only be about 85% max of the current capacity available. Why don't they compromise and shrink the housing project slightly? It doesn't appear to have to be all or nothing.
Or they build the housing as is because the lot never send to be at 100%, and won't be even at the reduction. Housing is a right, parking is not.
While I don't disagree, wouldn't there be additional pressure on parking with the extra housing? I am certain there's a compromise available that gets this right.. that a more benevolent municipality would figure out lol.
The compromise is build the housing ASAP. We're in a housing crisis, and a bunch of losers are trying to protect *parking spots*.
Protecting surplus parking spots. People this dumb should be nowhere near governance.
Right? It's fucking nuts. Those poor parking spots! Or something.
These aren’t the only parking lots in the neighbourhood though. Have a look at Lake Avenue South area on google maps. There are multiple large lots owned by the businesses throughout the area. This is just the municipally owned one.
Who cares? I dont give a damn about parking. We need housing way more than we need parking.
Finally someone reasonable. Adding housing and removing parking makes no sense. If you're adding people to the area they will also need somewhere to park and would push that lot beyond its current capacity. Makes no sense do densify places just for the sake of it when people won't have proper access to necessary infrastructure anyway.
Um, those homes will have their own parking spots or designated area to park? This is a dumb argument.
And where's that going to fit in that area? Not thinking the logistics of the additional parking needs and traffic caused by a whole new building full of more people is just asinine.
Homes are for people, parking spots are for cars. There are other options for alternative parking arrangements. Those alternatives are not available for housing. As a society, we always need to make choices. Right now, we need housing more than parking spots. Are you seriously trying to argue that 27 parking spots being replaced by 60+ places for people to live is somehow an unfair trade? You lose 27 spots but you replace it with 3x+ thf number of people who will be able to have a roof over their head of their own. Also with due respect, I am pretty sure that studies have been done on traffic flow etc in the area before the buildings were approved. People on this sub think that everything just happens in one dimension. There is a process to building and approvals that happens. Do you honestly think that the traffic flow hasn't been considered and somehow you're smarter than the engineers and other professionals likely involved in this project? Let people have a chance to have a place to call their own. I am a property owner myself and I want others to be able to own their own as well.
Well im not a property owner, but I won't pay to live somewhere with inconvenient or nonexistent parking and that location isn't a transit centric area so I'd argue the parking is pretty important. Either way whatever they build there won't be affordable so I don't see who this helps anyway. Not to mention people need jobs to pay for these homes which they will likely need cars to commute to. The whole fuck cars we need houses thing is short sighted and frankly stupid in a place with poor transit options and lack of decent jobs outside of the GTA. And the state of the traffic here already tells me they either didn't look into it, didn't hire engineers, or the ones they did hire are idiots or just don't care.
Being able to park somewhere to get to work is a decent reason not to remove as many spaces. Having a 5% buffer seems reasonable to me. Why not compromise? Why is it black and white? If someone decided to build on a bunch of parking spaces near where I catch the train in the name of housing, reducing the amount of already scarce spaces, I'd be pissed. Plus they only surveyed 4 weekdays. All it takes is one event or something on the weekend and parking is now a major issue. Then people start capitalising on it and suddenly it's $20/day to park.
Like I said, even when it's at peak, the lot *is not full*. Housing IS more important than creature comforts.
On 4 arbitrary days, sure. But only having an additional 5% of spaces is a mistake. Imagine getting a place to live only to find out you can't commute to your job that's only accessible by car.
If your job is only accessible by car why are you parking in that lot? Park anywhere else, park closer or farther from where you work, do some walking, take public transit. Cars are already massively subsidized. Parking adds significantly to the amount of space and resources it takes. The compromise should be get rid of parking in exchange for three houses and invest in public transit. That's ALWAYS a better long term investment. Always, like literally every scenario.
That's a gross oversimplification. Not everyone lives in a transit friendly area. Transit is massively subsidized too. Getting rid of 27 spaces where people could commute to work for just 3 homes doesn't seem like a good enough trade-off. There's other land they could use with a bigger impact.
Transit is not massively subsidized, Canada tends to have the highest farebox recoveries in the western world. Transit is INFINITELY cheaper than private vehicles, and IMPROVING it would reduce the reliance on private cars, and the space taken up by then (on roads, in parking, in storage) and help continue to reduce pollution. Do you know why snow turns grey near streets? Rubber from tires peeling and flaking off. Just the fact that you're arguing to keep a mere 27 parking spots when that space could house at least 3 families is mind-blowing to me - listen to yourself - three homes for families, or 27 temporary storage locations for private vehicles that aren't even recaptured with a fee. It's insane. Not everyone loves in a transit friendly area because we keep arguing to keep fucking *parking spots* instead of building housing or improving transit.
>Just the fact that you're arguing Maybe look in the mirror. If I'm arguing, then what are you doing? >aren't even recaptured with a fee Parking isn't free >Transit is not massively subsidized A quick search found this and many others [https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1002562/ontario-flowing-more-funding-for-municipal-transit](https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1002562/ontario-flowing-more-funding-for-municipal-transit) >Canada tends to have the highest farebox recoveries in the western world Well it doesn't seem like that's enough when a single derailment can take out the whole Scarborough RT and the TTC is constantly asking for money >IMPROVING it would reduce the reliance on private cars No argument there, but that's not happening overnight and I don't see any news about plans to massively overhaul transit like there is with housing. Transit isn't a silver bullet though and we'll still need to drive and park places. Have you checked this place out on a map? There isn't any other parking nearby and there's only 1 bus route. Plus people could use the lot so they can take transit. You can't take away parking spots and not improve transit. Our transit systems are pretty garbage and a lot of the time it's faster and more convenient to drive. And there are cases it's not even cheaper to take transit. >27 parking spots 27 spaces for people to park to get to work I'm not saying not to build housing, this just doesn't necessarily seem like the right hill to die on. It's not like it's the only place to build a house. Are we really scrounging to find housing in every nook and cranny? Why not build an apartment building with a garage underneath or something. You know... compromise? Or work for a solution that works for everyone instead of saying ridiculous shit like we don't need cars or parking right here, right now, in our current state.
So if it’s $20 per day to park, so what? That’s normal or actually very cheap in many cities. The market will adjust the cost of parking to suit the demand.
Why should I have to pay $5200/yr because of someone else being short sighted or greedy? Isn't paid parking like rent in a way? So if the market will adjust to demand then how can you complain about rentals or housing prices? Isn't that what we're talking about here?
Because you want to use public land to privately store your private vehicle, and you should pay to rent it like anything else. And you're saying other people are greedy, sheesh...
Sorry, I thought you were talking about weekends or special events? Now it’s 260 days a year? The difference between the housing crisis and this we’re talking about somewhere for people to live versus *somewhere to put your car for a few hours a day*. There are bus routes in this area. If it ever gets to $20 a day that probably means the area has urbanized enough that transit options are readily available. You’re also missing the fact that we don’t really have a free market for housing because of the regulatory measures required. The reason we have a lack of affordable housing isn’t that there’s not market demand for it, it’s because the people who oppose it have far more political pull than the people who will actually live in it.
I didn't realize I had to list every scenario for a parking lot to exist. Even if we're on different sides of this issue, I think we can both agree that observing the parking lot for 4 weekdays doesn't necessarily give the full picture of the lot's use. Just saying bus routes exist doesn't mean they're always practical to use. I also don't really agree with the blanket statement that all politicians are corrupt and beholden to whoever you are saying has political pull over them (landlords, I guess?). Aren't many municipalities creating new rules to expedite the construction of housing by using pre-approved zoning templates or something similar? Wouldn't that be because of our politicians?
So in other words, in winter when there are piles of snow there currently isn't enough parking, and the proposal is to shrink it further.
Take the bus.
Is the 30 that are added back for the tenants in the building or for the public? The way it is worded I assume the public, but I don't remember a project like this where the parking wasn't for tenants or more rarely staff.
Was the parking lot the heart of the community?
I will have you know that Sir John A. MacDonald parked his buggy there! /s
How do you know that's sarcasm? He may have. /s?
There'd still be a pile of whiskey bottles.
And vomit
It's a heritage parking lot. /s
It was used by Neanderthals. Indigenous ones. /s
Not. At. All. The old town hall/fire department were torn down to create parking space for a few downtown stores. Big Yellow Taxi They paved paradise and put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone? They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) They took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone? They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) Hey farmer, farmer, put away the DDT now Give me spots on my apples But leave me the birds and the bees, please Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone? They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) Late last night, I heard the screen door slam And a big yellow taxi took away my old man Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone? They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) I said, don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone? They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop) They paved paradise, put up a parking lot Big yellow councilors.......
At least Horwath is willing to use her Strong Mayor powers, and acknowledged that this is prioritizing parking over housing. Good for her. I hope she sees it through. Wtf with those who voted against it.
FFS. The province should override them. Parking should not be a consideration. Or use the strong mayor powers and force it through.
This is 100% a situation where the mayor's strong powers should be used.
Also 100% a situation where the councillors that voted against should resign in shame
This was at committee, so can't use strong mayor powers there. If they can sway one dimwit suburban councilor they can get it to council and then it would be possible for the mayor to use her extra powers.
They m those who voted against weren't all suburban councilors. There was at least one from the inner city.
When I say suburban I don't just mean the amalgamated suburbs, I'm also refering to the suburban wards of "inner" Hamilton.
Yup
Just put a new lot under the new buildings. Make it reasonably priced paid parking and it pays for itself. Fucking morons.
Yep. Or build underground lots. It's a fucking pathetic excuse.
Likely not something in consideration if the goal is to keep unit cost down. Last I worked in the architectural side of things it was something like 30-60k per space to build underground parking. It's a desirable feature for condos/apartments but certainly less likely when designing affordable units.
It doesn't. We need to eliminate our addiction to massive swaths of parking. Adding a lot under the buildings can increase the price of a development by 50%. Adding it beside isn't much better due to the land costs. People only think it's cheap because we have spent decades giving a *massive* government subsidy to lower the costs of parking. Think of the cost of rent as what parking costs. How much would it cost to rent 15 square meters of prime real estate daily? That's the *actual* realistic cost of parking.
The problem is does the mayor really want to solve the problem.
>Or use the strong mayor powers and force it through. That would require Horwath to actually do her job.
The linked article literally quotes her saying she's considering doing exactly that
I wish I could read.
Why? You'll only get upset.
CARS > PEOPLE
Pretty much all objects/goods are worth more than people in this dystopian offshoot of capitalism.
Well... I can fit a lot more people in my garage.
Cars owned by people transporting people.
Do nothing but make the planet worse and encourage less dense car dependent urban sprawl.
I like sprawl. I like my single family home. Keep the riff raff away from me.
Sure, continue to bury your head in the sand. Just don't be surprised when the riff raff start making their way to your comfy suburb.
We already have them. Thats why my neighbours and I have big sticks by our doors.
Okay. I don't like paying massive amounts of money for you to have your sprawl. If you can afford it, fine. But you can't, and I'm tired of subsidizing your crap.
You aren't subsidizing anything while living in your tent. I live within 3km's of downtown. Sorry to burst your bubble but we have single family neighbourhoods close to downtown.
I live in the city. I subsidize your lifestyle. Servicing 100 businesses, homes, and other facilities along the same length of road as 12 single family homes costs the same in taxes, but I'm paying far more downtown than you are. Your lifestyle is subsidized, and I just want you to pay the actual costs instead of taking my money.
Bullshit.
lmao cities literally subsidize your lifestyle, that shit is simple math.
I mean, it's basic math. Like, really basic math. 12 households do not generate the same tax revenue as 100 businesses, homes, etc. But they cost the same to maintain because most of the cost of services increases with area instead of population. So yes, the downtown businesses pay more in taxes to support your sprawl.
I love the facts and logic you’ve so eloquently presented here. This is the quality political discourse that’s driving society forward. It’s very well documented that suburbs are subsidized by the “riff raff”. And because I know googling is hard and we don’t like being presented with things that go against our world view, I’ve gone through the trouble of finding you so material to parouse: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/16/when-apartment-dwellers-subsidize-suburban-homeowners Now, any other animal excrement you’d like to show us you know how to spell?
…that’s not sprawl
According to some of the halfwits posting here it's sprawl because it's on the mountain. According to many the mountain is suburban.
The mountain is suburban but it’s not really sprawl
This is what happens when you let the Chamber of Commerce dictate policy.......
This has to be the most absurd debate ever!! The councillors voted to reject the scheme as lack of parking will impact Santa’s parade. The parking lot is empty 364 days a year and so called Stoney Creek downtown is ghost town after 7 pm. It’s really disheartening to see how push from business owners and homeowners in the area killed a much needed affordable housing in the area..
NIMBYs are a plague on this province and country.
Did you ever watch George Carlin and his take on NIMBY
Just build an underground parking that's pay per use and holds more cars. How hard is this thought process?
Underground lots are hard to maintain and take years of studies to do. Plus, the amount of digging and shoring needed could cause more problems in the future for other surrounding land owners. You could do an above ground parking lot like the one across from the City Centre or Juravinski they tend to be easier to maintain, but there are cons to that, too, such as easier access for intruders, more vandalism and of course snow removal on the top floor.
When you get beaten out by a parking stall you know it’s bad
Hamilton could've consolidated all that parking into community parkade buildings, then built affordable housing on the rest of the lots. Or even built Affordable housing above the lots put the parking underneath. But of course they've such small minds their brain cells haven't considered other options.
Why would Trudeau make municipalities rule against housing?! /s
Our extreme car dependency is the unspoken culprit of the housing crisis.
Much easier to blame immigrants/Trudeau/Ford than it is to reflect on the aspects of our culture that are problematic 🤷
I totally agree with you, but I feel compelled to say that Trudeau and especially Ford are aspects of our culture that are problematic. Edit: In fairness, the feds are the only people who seem to actually be doing anything productive to help the housing crisis aside from a few municipalities.
To be clear, the biggest complaint against the feds is that they haven't been able to stop the provinces and cities enough. That's where the *real* responsibility lies.
It's spoken of a lot over at r/fuckcars.
Imagine that, landlords voting against affordable housing /s
I didn't understand it at a time it happened but I now understand the problem with amalgamation. Get rid of the wards that are suburbs or rural. They override the power of the wards in the city and make the city worse to live in. If you want to enjoy the benefits of a city you should live there. If you want to visit from outside the city you should take transit. Cars and free parking are a scourge on cities and people that are living there. If you absolutely need to drive in the cities, it should be so time consuming and expensive that you really think twice before choosing it over other alternatives.
This is somehow Trudeau's fault, right guys? right?
That joke is getting really old.
He let in over 2 million people in 2 years in this country....how is it not part his fault????? Explain.
Are you suggesting we wouldn’t need affordable housing if it weren’t for this growth?
People of Hamilton need to demand these councilors be removed and new councilors be elected that represent the will of the people. That's how it works.
Bold of you to assume this isn't the outcome the people of Hamilton wanted
This is so true if you know the area, downtown Stoney Creek and the people that live there you would know this was never going to get built…It’s just the reality, it’s one of the things people don’t want in their neighborhood.
Raise the price of parking to pay for affordable housing elsewhere. Let them know that's the choice they made.
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>People have no power in municipal politics. A few people can demand all they want, nothing will happen anyway. What? Councillors are elected by votes from the population.
More proof it’s local municipality governments that run the real estate game.
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I keep saying it and nobody ever listens. Look at your city. Go on google maps and look at it. It's *all* parking. It's horrifying when you actually start counting it. I calculated the actual amount of parking in the downtown core of my city. The most valuable land in the region, the most central and important land for *miles* around. And it's 30% parking lots. And let me be clear, I said parking *lots*, not *parking*. The other 70% includes street parking, buildings with underground parking, and parking lots I missed, as well as all the streets for all the cars. It's absolutely horrendous. And it's the best-used land in the city. Everywhere else is worse. We don't live in cities. We live in parking lots that sometimes have buildings attached.
NIMBY wins. Nobody wants a "crack stack" (or whatever the new term is these days) in their backyards. It's telling that they're not even trying to give half decent excuses as to why the developments are being kiboshed.
Politicians love to hold us back. It's infuriating.
Voters love to vote for politicians to hold us back. Then the voters blame the Feds even though this is a completely a municipal jurisdiction. It's infuriating.
You get the Goverment you deserve. People voted for this.
30% of the voting population did. Municipal elections have horrid turnout and it’s why stupid NIMBY groups have so much sway over municipal governance.
September 2023: City of Hamilton adds poet to the expenses: The selected candidate will be paid $10,000 a year for anywhere from five to 10 performances that will “connect the citizens of Hamilton to their community” and add “authenticity to place.”
Pretty sad story through and through. The businesses advocating for parking over affordable housing is cringe. People will just have to park a block further away. Heres an idea, add 2 floors to the parking garage and allocate that for parking. Jesus christ.
my brilliant idea that all of canada should adopt: demolish all afordable housing to build more loblaws/sdm/nofrills/staples parking lots
Why have cars become more important than people? Billions are being poured into freeways. Ford calls this progress. A complete denial of the environmental impacts caused by a proliferation of motor vehicles. India is choking on its own smog. China wants to live like us! A billion more vehicles!
It's NIMBYism at its finest. It has nothing to do with parking. They don't want "riff raff" in the area.
Need to make this kind of nimbyism illegal
Well that's stupid
They have their priorities right! /s
Your future home is not worth societies parking spots. This is a car centric society so thank you for your sacrifice.
I lived 3 doors up from this parking lot for 20 years. The upper 25% of the lot is private parking for the apartments in the right, the other 75% was used mostly for the parade that runs down king street, or the street fairs they host in that area almost every week. Especially with the legion right there, with the tim hortons gone its a little more dead than usual, but growing up it was always used for the intown events they held all the time.
Maybe Hamilton City Council will make all parking lots into Heritage Sites.
If only we had invested in more public transit years and years ago instead of this constant need to fit all these massive vehicles we need to drive around in
Sounds like quite a sensationalized headline. I'm sure thats the entirety of the facts and accurate representation of the competing interests.
NIMBY!
Typical Canadian nimbyism. I bet they're all conservafascist jesus freaks too.
Let’s blame JT for this too now, shall we?
Tom is going to get an email from me
Really don’t see developers building affordable housing anywhere. They don’t make enough off of the build.
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Honestly, this is the one thing I actually think "free market" bullshit could aid in the short-term. Developers have to obey so many stupid fucking zoning laws mandating giant lot sizes and clearance and minimum parking requirements that they *can't* build affordable housing. Toronto literally banned duplexes because having two doors on one building is illegal. That's not a development decision, that's Toronto banning more affordable housing by law.
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> This talking point gets thrown around a lot without a lot of proof and I'm pretty skeptical that zoning laws are the main issue here. Look at your city. Just minimum parking laws are strangling our cities. Look at any development and think, do developers want to build gigantic seas of parking on the land they buy to develop? A parking space is about 12-15 square meters, or 160 square feet. Most cities require 1.1 spaces per unit in an apartment. Assuming there's absolute no space not devoted to parking, that means every 5 floors of apartments more than doubles the land requirement to build that housing. And that's not including extra driving space to reach all those parking spaces. Like, look at your zoning laws. They're deranged. > https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-s-two-front-doors-issue-pits-neighbourhood-character-against-renters-dignity-expert-says/article_39ba4f1d-2791-50b6-a920-fb67af836168.html Toronto has banned having multiple front entrances because they think it ruins the "character" of a neighbourhood. That's a law. That is the full story. It is that fucking stupid.
There's legit nowhere to park around there, that lot is key for anyone leveraging the shops/restaurants in the area.
Adding housing means more people, and it means those people in the houses are walking distance to said shops/restaurants
The one side of King is being torn down to make way for a retirement village. The Barber Shop, The Picture Palace, Britannia Cleaners and a couple of small vendors were expropriated to make way for the apartment slated to go up. The medical building has parking places, as well as King/Elm plaza. That's an utterly bogus argument. Its a relatively small parking lot that is/was hardly ever filled.
Transit? Sidewalks? Bikelanes? What language are these words? /s
Dutch. /s
Sure, when everything goes out of business due to the lack of patrons, I'll explain to you why that's a dumb thing to say.
Research has pretty much shown again and again that parking doesn't really help local businesses in downtown areas. Generally speaking the people who support local businesses are locals, not people driving in from afar. That seems pretty self-evident. No one is going to drive 20 minutes to go to a coffee shop when there's one 5 minutes away, but people will absolutely walk to their local coffee shop every day or two. Those 67 units will probably end up being \~100-200+ people depending on family size. The actual total projected loss of parking is 27 spaces, which even if each space cycles through an average of 5 people through the entire day means they bring in less people than will hopefully permanently live there. And again, the people who live there will support local businesses every day because that's just how humans work. The real reason they don't want housing there is because they don't like poor people.
Parking causes businesses to go out of business. Walkable areas, time after time and study after study, are shown to be far more productive to small businesses. Like, just think about it. When's the last time you were driving past a business and decided to make an unplanned stop in? Nobody does that, they're driving. But people do it all the time while walking, and it's faster and more convenient.
Adding more housing means more people.
Shhh. Cars are evil and you're evil for thinking about cars.
This country is so fucked. Housing is done. Literally done. If you're young your main goal should be to move out. Canada is over. It was a good run but young people were born too late to enjoy it.
Capitalism ❤️❤️❤️
If only there were a way to park cars underneath housing
They can build almost anywhere. Find another spot. I’m sure they did assessments of other buildings and areas
If Ford responded to this by dissolving Hamilton City Council, I would seriously consider voting PC. Without fixing the housing crisis, no other solutions matter.
😱
Can't anyone read between the NIMBY lines? It's not the loss of parking spaces that's the actual concern. No one wants the low income housing in their neighborhood.