Let’s Talk Parking in Esquimalt

Starting in 2022, the Township undertook an Integrated Parking Strategy and Regulatory Framework project as an opportunity to pursue high-level strategic direction around land use and built form, multi-modal transportation and parking management.

The goal was to look for refreshed parking strategies, policies, regulations, and management approaches that would better reflect the Township’s goals and values resulting in more certainty and a greater level of confidence to residents, businesses, developers and Council.

A comprehensive process was created to result in two key outcomes:

1. A new Public Parking Management Strategy to guide decision-making and implementation for publicly provided parking – including EV charging, bicycle parking and accessible parking

2. A new Parking Bylaw that incorporate contemporary standards to ensure appropriate and desirable parking conditions are included in future land development

Results

The Integrated Parking Management Strategy - Action Plan was adopted in July, 2024 (See the July 8, 2024 staff report for full details)

Integrated Parking Management Strategy and Parking Bylaw process:

• May 2, 2022 - Council awards parking study contract to Urban Systems (see staff report EPW-22-007)
• August 22, 2022 - Consultants present preliminary findings to the Committee of the Whole (see staff report DEV-22-076)
• August 21, 2023 - Consultants present drafts of the Integrated Parking Management Strategy and Parking Bylaw (see staff report DEV-23-058)
• September 6 to October 4, 2023 - Community check-in period on final drafts
• February 12, 2024 - Committee of the Whole recommend to direct staff to finalize the Parking Bylaw, endorse Parking Strategy and bring forward an Impact Assessment on implementing the actions in the Parking Strategy (see staff report EPW-24-003)

Previous community feedback opportunities:

• Updates were discussed at the Aug 21, 2023 Committee of the Whole, including a presentation from the consultants doing the work
  
• A survey (July 2022) that asked about current parking needs and what is important to you
• An interactive mapping tool to identify key locations where public parking is challenging
• Committee of the Whole on August 22, 2022
• Fall 2022 open houses- see the presentation boards
  

Let’s Talk Parking virtual information session:

Comments? engineering@esquimalt.ca