Credit: Dreamstime

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER – Forcing more cars onto the street won’t solve housing shortage

Jun 16, 2021 | 4:46 AM

KAMLOOPS — FROM SHIPPING CONTAINERS to allowing multi-family development in commercial areas, it was an action-packed committee-of-the-whole meeting yesterday. That’s the meeting where the entire City council sits as a committee to spitball ideas without making immediate decisions.

One of the more interesting planks in a staff report on updates to the City’s zoning bylaw had to do with increasing housing opportunities.

Among the proposals is to reduce parking requirements for multi-family developments. Councillors have varying views on that one.

One is that City Hall needs to shake things up to in order to create a more diverse range of housing. Another is that increasing densities in certain areas makes sense but not at the expense of parking.

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If it isn’t clear by now that Kamloops has a parking problem, it never will be. The idea of reducing reliance on automobiles as the fundamental mode of transportation is good and honourable but practicality must have a role.

Requiring less parking within multi-family developments would mean cars would be pushed out onto the street, where parking is already tight. A shortage of parking for condos and apartments in the City’s core provides a living example of the challenge.

Until more progress is made in reducing the use of the automobile and making the city more tuned in to walking, cycling and using buses for getting from A to B, moving more cars to the street would simply make an existing problem worse.

And, as for those shipping containers, they’re a popular but unsightly method for storage, and are currently restricted on where they can be used. Some entrepreneurs are experimenting with turning them into housing but, essentially, they’re just big tin cans.

Allowing them to spread into additional types of zoning would be a mistake.

Public feedback on these proposed changes to the zoning bylaw promises to be very spirited indeed.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.