Hi guys thanks for the replies. Apologies but I’m not an advocate for less traffic - at issue is parking. Maybe you guys can help me out - what is the issue exactly with the city approving new units with adequate parking? Happy to have an uphill discussion - however - what’s the issue? The expense of adding parking units to this development that can’t be offloaded onto the cost of the unit? Does the project become not feasible with more spots per unit? No one will pay over $2M for a unit and then have to fight it out on the street for a city parking spot 2 blocks away.
All fair questions; taking them one by one:
> There are lots and lots of people in this city who have paid -- and of course many more who will pay -- for $2M+ units without parking; the underlying supposition of your point here seems to be that all rich people own cars, which is simply untrue.
> At today's construction costs in downtown Toronto, every single unit of parking costs a developer somewhere between $70,000-$100,000 and effectively every single cost in a development pro forma is passed on through the purchase price; development is only feasible if the margin on cost is high enough to satisfy a developer's investors, so when margins are tight, a big hard cost such as parking requirements can and frequently does either render a project unbuildable, or whittle away at other much more desirable project attributes (like the pursuit of higher sustainability metrics, community benefits, or architectural aesthetics). These are big problems in a city in the midst of an unprecedented housing affordability crisis that shows no structural signs of abating.
> Mandatory parking minimums (or just broadly advocacy for more parking) have significant negative externalities beyond just affordability (road congestion, added carbon emissions, etc.); the City -- and all its residents -- should in a broad sense be advocates for public policymaking that reduces negative externalities.
More simply and specifically put, think of the alternate scenario from which you have proposed: if you lobbied some combination of your councillor, the local planner, and the developer such that you were able to convince them that they should build this with
zero parking, you'd actually be advocating for a position that is much more likely to net you the outcome for which you're searching (no added strain on the parking supply in your neighbourhood) -- you'd be getting people moving into this building who don't own cars at all.
If you're not interested in that approach, a much more productive one (from the standpoint of both your own personal interests and through a broader societal lens) would be to work with your councillor to change the parking regulations on your street (correct me if I'm wrong but I believe there is currently 1-hour free parking on Chicora and no permit parking), to introduce permit parking either exclusively throughout the day or for designated hours. This is done routinely throughout the city and is a very simple change for a councillor to enact.
