Delta will soon be implementing a residential permit parking program in an effort to alleviate parking concerns within the Boundary Bay neighbourhood.
The pilot program, approved by council at a special meeting Tuesday afternoon, would normally take place between May 1 and Sept. 8 to correlate with peak activity at Centennial Beach including the Labour Day long weekend.
With council just approving the program, Delta is targeting June 15 as this year’s start date.
Council also gave staff the green light to proceed on proposed intersection improvements at 3 Avenue and Centennial Parkway.
The start of this permit program follows a public engagement process, which staff was directed by council to undertake following its April 27th council meeting.
Delta distributed a community survey to area residents to gauge interest in the residential permit parking pilot program and the intersection improvements.
According to a Delta staff report, a total of 707 surveys were issued and 294 responses were received for an overall response rate of 42 per cent.
The findings showed that 70 per cent of respondents are in favour (207) of the proposed parking permit while 17 per cent are opposed (50). Also, 72 per cent are in favour (212) of the proposed intersection improvements, while 11 per cent are opposed (32).
Director of engineering Steven Lan said in his report that commonly cited comments by those in favour of the parking permit included that permit parking will drastically help resolve the parking issue in the neighbourhood; due to the growing popularity of the beach, permit parking is necessary and that the two-hour public parking will accommodate short-term visits to the beach and dog park.
Those opposed to the program said as long as there is some available public parking in the neighbourhood, visitors will continue to seek parking in the area and this will not alleviate the overflow traffic concerns.
Residents also feel that they will not receive enough permit parking passes to accommodate their guests and that public parks and street parking are shared facilities and should not be for the exclusive use by Boundary Bay residents.
Delta has received a petition from residents with frontage along 3 Avenue. They have indicated opposition to the two-hour public parking along 3 Avenue. There are 33 households with frontage along 3 Avenue that would be directly impacted with the proposed two-hour public parking.
Lan said based on combined survey and petition responses, 23 of these households indicated opposition to the proposed permit parking.
“The overall results from the survey indicate residents are in favour of the proposed changes,” said Lan. “Staff will have an opportunity at the end of the pilot program to seek resident feedback on their experiences and report those findings back to council.
“The implementation of the pilot program will still ensure the availability of visitor parking for the general public. There will be approximately 65 visitor parking spaces available in Boundary Bay.”
Coun. Dylan Kruger said he was supportive of the plans.
“You will never get unanimous direction when you go out into the community, but I think a significant majority are supportive, so we will see how the trial will go this summer,” he said. “I am sympathetic with some of the comments that have been made about just ensuring there is enough visitor parking space that remains for everyone who lives in Delta to be able to come down to Boundary Bay…those are streets that are maintained by all of our city tax dollars. I think there are…I hope it will work…will see what happens. That will be the one thing I will look at when this comes back to us in the fall – was there sufficient visitor parking for our residents to enjoy Boundary Bay.”
