Saint John's disappearing parking lots puts pressure on commuters

Hundreds of parking spots are in the process of disappearing in Saint John's uptownand a new city bylaw is expected to put further pressure on those parking lots that remain.

New construction projects forthe Irving Oil headquarters, and NB Liquor outletand a Moosehead small batch brewery are either underway or will soon be on what used to be parking lots.

A fourth parking lot, off King Street East, will eventually house a parking garage for Irving Oil employees.

But in the meantime well over 350 parking spaces across the four lots will no longer be available.

Parking lot crackdown

Into this mix is a city hall crackdown on unregistered parking lots which began in June2015 and is still underway.

A total of 36 properties were declared non-compliant.

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Owners were forced to go back to the beginning and apply to the city's planning department to operate a parking lot.

In many cases,bringing lots into compliance required landscaping, curbing and other improvements that reduced the number of parking spaces.

A recent report prepared for city council said10 parking are still designated non-compliant with a November deadline looming.

That's unfair- Ward 3 councillor Donna Reardon

Ward 3 Coun.Donna Reardon is pleased the city is now gaining the upper hand on owners of vacant lots who compete with city-owned parking lots.

"These vacant lots that were being assessed and taxed as a vacant lots were actually income properties," said Reardon. "That's unfair."

"It's moving in the right direction," said Coun.Gerry Lowe, who holds the other Ward 3 position."There was a lot of parking spots.And when people are making money off parking, there's an incentive to leave it at parking, instead of trying to put a building on it."

Another city initiative is expected to push an estimated 100 to 125 commuters into the hunt for off-street parking.

New 2-hour limit in some areas

On Sept. 6 councillors gave final reading to a bylaw change that imposes a two-hour parking limit on streets in more distant areas of the central peninsula where people have, for decades, parked for free and walked several blocks to the uptown to work.

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Those cars will now be ticketed unless they are moved repeatedly throughout the work day.

While the number of off-street parking spots has been reduced there are still openings, saidIan MacKinnon, the new CEO of Saint John's parking commission.

"There's capacity in the uptown area for monthly parking," said MacKinnon.

He urges those looking for spots to call the commission office where they will be directed to a lot with available monthly parking even if it is not owned or managed by the city.