Some residents of Vancouver’s West End are steaming about changes coming to parking permits for the neighbourhood.
Starting in May, the single West End parking permit zone is being divided into three: the area west of Denman Street, the area south of Davie Street and the remainder of the West End, dubbed the “plateau.”
The new permit parking zones in Vancouver’s West End.
City of Vancouver
That has some vehicle owners, who already pay by far the highest permit parking fees in the city, angry.
“It’s not worth $450, honestly, I don’t know who they are trying to kid,” said Julia Nystrom of the reduced parking zone. “The fact they think it’s OK to price gouge on us I think is disgusting.”
Resident Cindy Wang said with street parking as competitive as it already is, the changes could make finding a spot even tougher.
“Sometimes you have to drive around to find a parking space — now you cannot. We are restricted,” she said.
Alina Cheng, the City of Vancouver’s associate director of parking management, said the changes are intended to make it easier for people to find spaces near their own homes.
That’s because the West End, the city’s largest parking zone, is also home to the largest number of permit holders, and many people use their permits to park on errands away from their residence, she said.
“What we found (during a 2017 review of neighbourhood parking) is that sometimes folks would drive from one end of the zone to the other, whether they were going to the beach or going to the park or going to their favourite store or restaurant, and that was causing a lot of congestion,” she said.
“By splitting the zone, really we want people to use their permit to park close to their home. It’s not meant to park close to somewhere where you are going.”
Fees to park in the West End are not changing, she said.
The West End is the only permit area in the city that uses a “market rate,” currently $453.62 plus GST, though a reduced non-market rate is available for low-income households.
The next most expensive residential permit in Vancouver is the zone north of Robson Street at $151.83, while most city permits come in around $75.
The city implemented the West End market rate in 2017 after it found many people were parking on the street instead of their buildings’ parkades because it was cheaper.
That’s a point resident Dennis Hartley made, telling Global News he wasn’t particularly concerned about the smaller zones either.
“I mean, they are sort of meant for people who live (in the area). More people who live in the West End shouldn’t even have cars anyway, it’s not like you need one if you live down here,” he said.
“If you had to buy into a building’s underground parking, it would be way more than that. I find parking on the street is ridiculously cheap for a year.”
The permit changes take effect May 1, though last year’s permits remain valid for the entire West End until the end of May.