No plan, no purpose, no wonder businesses are upset, but council won’t relent
Mayor and council need to press pause on their pay parking plan. Too much is at stake to fix it on the fly. It has to stop so we can rethink its future before more damage is done.
The plan’s expansion into Ambleside Park is frustrating and harming Ambleside businesses, threatening the future of the Farmers Market, confusing the user groups, and penalizing and repelling visitors. In only months, it has hurt decades of work in building our community’s reputation as a supporter of local business.
Surely this can’t be the West Vancouver our mayor and council want. But it is proving to be the West Vancouver they’re creating and sustaining.
Yet again Monday night, mayor and council couldn’t agree to stop the bleeding. They rejected two motions, one to pause the program until July and another to pause it indefinitely, so there will be more pain for a vulnerable business community as the mayor and council try to hatch a better scheme.
They certainly got an earful Monday from the frontlines.
Ryan Emmerson of Earl’s Restaurant says business is down $400,000 since the introduction of pay parking in Ambleside last September, even though the chain’s restaurants elsewhere have seen business grow. He thinks 15-20 young people won’t have jobs this summer at his restaurant.
Christin Fernandes, owner of Da Vinci’s Home, criticized the lack of consultation and said concerns had “largely been ignored.” She said every business owner concurs about the negative impact and urged action. “Indifference is not an option.” She and business owner David Jones presented a petition signed by 1,012 West Vancouver residents (people who are actually exempt from paying for parking, I might add) who recognize the mess and want the plan stopped until a solution can be found.
It is clear there are problems, yet the municipal government can’t bring itself to back down.
If you unpack the issue, it starts with the lack of consultation. Then there is the lack of purpose. Then the lack of a plan. Questions abound:
Is it actually to raise revenue for general purposes, for parks, for culture, for the business villages?
Is it to manage access to parks by dissuading people from coming to West Vancouver to shop, play and spend time and dollars?
Is it a step in a larger plan to blanket our shopping villages and residential streets with pay parking and not just term parking ?
Is there a revenue target against which to assess the scheme’s performance?
And is it at all clear how much is actually spent to study, staff and enforce the system?
So, is it actually good business?
We don’t have a clear accounting of contractor costs on studies, or the net projected revenue now that enforcement staff is being added. We don’t know where the money is going, so we don’t know yet if it is actually worth the effort.
This program had weak consultation, a rollout that rolled back, and until a few weeks ago, not even a policy as a framework for something that had started in 2023.
An obvious problem now concerns the first summer of the scheme in busy Ambleside Park. Farmers Market volunteers and workers, and visiting athletes, coaches and their spectator families, among others, are going to be paying as they contribute to the community’s summer culture.
Many visitors will avoid the fee and park instead nearby in front of businesses on Bellevue and Marine, impeding commerce. It’s been happening for months, and warmer weather brings many more to Ambleside. I was there Sunday afternoon for a taste of what is to come.
Now, if this were a serious revenue proposition to ease the burden on property owners, everyone would be paying. But West Vancouverites are exempt, and the District is forgoing a seven-figure sum in doing so. This exemption makes it far more difficult to turn to it as a major source of funds, particularly if there isn’t vigorous enforcement of term parking on streets.
It feels more like an effort to keep people away. It’s a welcome mat of banana peels.
It was strange to hear Monday that the District now wants to study how severely it’s damaging businesses. It’s cruel to study their suffering to create some sort of benchmark.
It’s time to pause, reflect, seek the community’s input as a foundation and not as an improvisation, and try to find a system that will enjoy much broader support of those who enjoy West Vancouver.
I suspect there are solutions if we spend the time to explore them: business protections, demand-based pricing, daily and seasonal caps, physical payment options, among them. But if pay parking is going to stay, residents deserve to know what problem it solves, a transparent business model of revenue and expenses, and a clearer understanding of the trade-offs in hurting business and our community’s reputation. We have none of these answers now.
And if that isn’t possible, then don’t do it. Look for money somewhere else.