Coquitlam engineering staff will begin working on a plan outlining how the municipality intends to manage parking in the City Centre area ahead of construction of the Evergreen Line.
With greater densification in the area, parking issues have begun to change, with some areas experiencing higher volumes of parked cars while other lots are under-utilized.
"If you have too little parking, you very quickly find out what that might mean for support for business," said Bill Susak, the city's manager of engineering. "If you have too much parking... you are also going to have impacts."
Of the 28 residential and mixed-use development permit applications approved by the city between 2008 and 2010, 10 variances were allowed for parking ranging from 17% to 30% less than the required minimum.
Staff have also found that while developers are required to provide a certain number of stalls depending on the density of a given residence, much of the parking is held back and sold to homeowners. This has led to spill-over, staff said, filling many city streets with vehicles that would be better off stored in their building's parkade.
Rapid transit could also further stress the parking stock as many people are expected to drive to their local Evergreen station and park their vehicles.
Coun. Mae Reid said in preparing the plan, staff needs to be cautious about any proposals that would limit the number of stalls in the neighbourhood.
She said studies in places such as Vancouver that call for less parking should not carry the same weight in Coquitlam, where there are more hills and more people who drive. "We have to keep in mind what kind of city we live in," she said. "In the older areas of Coquitlam, go there at about 11 o'clock at night and you won't find a bare parking spot because everyone has an extra car."
Coun. Brent Asmundson concurred, saying any plan should err on the side of too much parking rather than too little.
But Coun. Selina Robinson said the report should reflect changing attitudes toward the automobile.
"The next generation sees vehicles very differently than my generation," Robinson said. "It would be great to have some data on that group. They are less interested in driving a vehicle. They think it is very expensive and they have a different relationship from an urban perspective."
Staff said they would begin consultations with the public on the parking issue and would likely present council with a plan early in 2012.
