Quote:
Originally Posted by POLYCORP-Pete Polley
HRM Parking requirements for Jazz (Halifax Peninsula R-3 Zone) -
1 parking space 9 feet x 20 feet - individually accessible.
Right from the 1960's...
Obviously for a project like this :
a) Do not need 1 space per unit
b) Spaces do not need to be anywhere near this big. HRM has ignored the fact that cars have gotten smaller over the past 40 years... i.e. smaller Japanese cars that started to come to North America in the early 1970's...
HRM Staff indicate that they do not have the authority to modify size or number of parking spaces with a variance under the Land Use Bylaw. If there are any planners out there that would can find a way for us to have the right to demand a variance on this, would love to hear from you...
We can get a credit for 2 parking spaces for providing bike parking...so we would need 60 parking spaces for 62 units...
Peter Polley
POLYCORP
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I think if I did my metric conversion correctly; Calgary uses a parking stall size requirement quite similar as do many places in Alberta. I'd guess that it's a pretty universal size concept - except out here, it is usually too small (since the pick up truck and SUV reign supreme).
As to the variance powers, here is an excerpt from the HRM charter:
"259 (1) A development officer may grant a variance in one or more of the following terms in a development agreement, if provided for by the development agreement, or in land-use by-law requirements:
(a) percentage of land that may be built upon;
(b) size or other requirements relating to yards;
(c) lot frontage or lot area, or both, if
(i) the lot existed on the effective date of the by-law, or
(ii) a variance was granted for the lot at the time of subdivision approval.
(2) Where a municipal planning strategy and land-use by-law so provide, a development officer may grant a variance in one or more of the following terms in a development agreement, if provided for by the development agreement, or in land-use by-law requirements:
(a) number of parking spaces and loading spaces required;
(b) ground area and height of a structure;
(c) floor area occupied by a home-based business;
(d) external appearances of structures;
(e) height and area of a sign."
So 259 (2) (a) limits the power of the DO to vary only the number of parking and loading spaces, not the size. No luck on parking stall sizes.
In Alberta, the MGA doesn't really set limitations on the variance powers of the Development Authority in terms of permits. But each city/town does things differently. For example: Calgary's LUB has parts of use definitions which cannot be varied, but other rules can be (and that includes rules which may not setout a numeric value to be achieved, like a setback). But other communities like the RMWB actually setout in their LUB limits to variance powers on things like setbacks, which in their case I believe is 50%, but they have no power to vary parking stall requirements (number or size).
It's been my experience when appealing a variance refusal in Alberta, that where a Development Authority doesn't necessarily have the power to grant the variance, the appeal body may have that power. So perhaps you may want to get a legal interpretation from that perspective? If the DO can't vary the size of the parking stall; could the community council that you appeal the variance too? Meaning - you'd be intentionally applying for a variance you know would be refused, on the hopes that the appealing body could overturn that decision. Risky though.
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