The City of Greater Sudbury is undertaking a review of its parking standards in a bid to get more residential units built.
“There’s a goal from council to have more housing units, so how do you facilitate that?” city senior planner Ed Landry told Sudbury.com following Monday’s planning committee meeting. “Part of that is taking a look at our parking standards.”
During Monday’s meeting, city council members gave staff direction to return to them with new parking standards for a decision by the end of June.
The parking standards review is part of a federally mandated municipal effort tied to the $16-million in federal funding the city received earlier this year to spur housing development.
The funding stems from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, which has various strings attached which the city is following up on, including the parking review.
The city last updated its parking standards in 2021, when certain residential parking standards were loosened from the previously mandated 1.5 parking spaces per unit to one.
The city has changed since that time, including the allowance of a third unit per lot as-of-right last year, followed shortly thereafter by the approval of a fourth unit.
(As-of-right means that properties don’t have to go through rezoning for there to be up to four units per fully serviced residential lot, as long as they meet all other requirements.)
When it comes to current parking standards, those multiple-dwelling, row-dwelling, long-term care facilities and retirement homes abutting GOVA Transit routes can currently have their parking space requirements reduced by 10 per cent.
One of the proposals in Landry’s report would be for higher-density properties in close proximity to high-frequency GOVA Transit routes to benefit from a 50-per-cent parking space requirement reduction.
“Where right now you might require four parking spots for four units, if you’re within a high-frequency transit area you might need two parking spaces for four units,” Landry said. “It might attract a tenant who may not have a vehicle and who would have access to a bus at those high frequencies.”
Other parking requirement changes might include adopting a more geographical approach to parking, since Landry said older lots tend to be smaller and have less room for vehicles.
The nuance between all these points will be hashed out in Landry’s upcoming recommendations to city council members, with the underlying goal to lessen parking requirements to help spur the construction of more residential units.
Parking requirements have come up as a barrier from time to time when looking at minor variances, Landry said, adding that it may have contributed to some residential units not getting built.
Greater Sudbury’s parking requirements are “generally consistent” with municipal comparators, Landry said, though Toronto has no minimum parking requirements for certain dwelling types and some municipalities have maximum parking requirements.
During the previous parking requirements review in 2021, Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury publicly advocated for the removal of parking minimums.
“Eliminating parking minimums is the change to parking standards we need to best support more affordable housing options, sustainable transportation and compact complete communities,” they tweeted at the time. “If Edmonton can do it, so can we.”
In December 2024, with the introduction of fourth units as-of-right, the coalition reiterated this push in a written submission to city council members.
“If parking requirements are not eliminated, then the inability to meet those requirements will de
facto remove many lots from the potential to provide more housing units,” chair Naomi Grant wrote.
“As neighbourhoods intensify, current parking requirements would also make those neighbourhoods less climate resilient and more susceptible to flooding and extreme heat. In effect, front and side yards would become parking, replacing planted areas with paved areas.”
Reducing parking minimums doesn’t mean eliminating parking, she clarified, noting that it “allows developers, homeowners and businesses to decide how much on-site parking to provide on their properties based on their particular needs.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
