Info Via Sam Austin via newsletter
“Council approved adding to the list increasing parking rates, and decreasing the hours in which parking is free.
The potential changes to street parking rates and times is likely to attract the most attention since it’s something that affects people in their day-to-day lives. Council is considering making street parking paid on Saturdays and extending the evening cutoff for paid parking from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Saturday parking isn’t something that HRM has charged for before, but we’re almost alone in that. Most big Canadian cities charge for parking on Saturdays including: Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Quebec City. The only comparable Canadian cities that, like us, don’t have paid parking on Saturday are Winnipeg, Regina, and London. Our small city Atlantic neighbours like Moncton, Charlottetown and St. John’s also don’t charge on Saturdays. The vote to add Saturday parking to the adjustment list was almost unanimous, 15-1 with Councillor Outhit voting no.
Adding evening parking to the list for consideration was a bit more controversial, passing 11 – 5, with myself, Outhit, Mancini, Savage, and Russell voting no. I voted against evening parking because Downtown Dartmouth has a thriving restaurant and bar scene and my concern is that adding evening parking while businesses are still recovering from the difficult COVID years could have negative impacts. Plus, we really don’t have the same sort of issues in Downtown Dartmouth that Downtown Halifax does. Councillor Mason spoke about streetside spaces in Downtown Halifax being occupied by employees at the many Downtown businesses, taking away spaces from patrons. Downtown Dartmouth has some of that challenge too, but not to the same degree, so the case for adding evening hours just isn’t as strong. Downtown Dartmouth is stuck in the middle between high-demand Downtown Halifax and free parking suburbia and sometimes that in between position requires a different approach. This will come back for further debate and I have requested that staff have an option ready to not add evening parking to Downtown Dartmouth, even if it proceeds in Downtown Halifax.
The last potential user fee increase related to parking that was added to the adjustment list is upping the actual rate. Parking is charged based on demand, meaning that it’s most expensive in the middle of the day and cheaper in the morning and late afternoon. In Dartmouth (zone H), the new rates would increase the cost of parking over the lunchtime to $3.25 an hour from the current $2.50.
The vote to add the increased rates to the adjustment list passed unanimously.
