City keeping schools out of the parking business
April 30, 2010
Patty Winsa
URBAN AFFAIRS REPORTER
It turns out that even the Toronto District School Board can't fight city hall.
A plan to raise money by charging for after-hours parking at 40 schools, the second phase of a pilot project that began last year, has been delayed because of a conflict with city staff.
The board will “delay the expansion until we know if we have political support from the city,” said Trustee Josh Matlow (Ward 11, St. Paul's), an early supporter of the plan.
According to a source at the board, high-level planning staff at the city didn't think the board should operate commercial parking lots — even though one of the bidders for the operating contract was the city's own parking corporation, the Toronto Parking Authority. (The TPA lost out to ParkSmart because it wanted to take on only a small number of the board's lots.)
The source said city staff told the board they would have to go through an onerous and expensive approval process.
“We're trying to understand from the city what their real objection is,” said the source. “We haven't been able to come to an agreement with them that this is a good idea.”
The board started the program last year in 10 school lots, most near prime shopping areas where parking is at a premium, such as the Beach or the Yonge strip from St. Clair to Lawrence Ave.
The program was supposed to be rolled out to 200 more schools — about 40 a year — in hopes of netting $2.2 million for the cash-strapped board. Of the proceeds, 10 per cent would go to the school, 90 per cent to the board's capital budget, which has a $2.8 billion backlog. So far, the lots have raised $90,000.
The big issue is zoning, the city says. The school board hoped to rezone the lots to commercial so it could advertise. But city bylaws say commercial lots are not allowed to operate in residential areas, where most of the schools are located.
To get around that, the school board opened nine lots as “paid visitor parking,” without signs. The remaining parking lot was in an area zoned commercial. People using the lots could purchase a parking slip from a self-serve machine.
At issue is whether the paid visitor lot is considered a commercial lot, said Joe D'Abramo, city director of zoning bylaw and environmental planning.
He says the board is “splitting hairs over how they manage this lot. All I can tell you for sure is they can't take a parking lot and turn it into a commercial lot in a residential zone. That's when you get into a problem.”
Also at play are Toronto's post-amalgamation consolidated bylaws, which come into effect this summer and will ban paid parking at apartment buildings in purely residential areas, D'Abramo said. The fear is that visitors won't want to pay and will park on streets, depriving residents who have parking permits.
Such a restriction has been in effect in North York for 15 years, where it was championed by Councillor Howard Moscoe, but not in the rest of the amalgamated city. A judge upheld the bylaw nine years ago, when a resident tried to fight it in court.
Board staff aren't sure whether the new bylaw has implications for paid parking at schools.
Matlow says he's frustrated by the city's lack of support, given that a city agency bid on the initial contract.
“The city has been clear that they don't want the school board to do this. They don't want the competition,” he said. But “from the school board's perspective — with a funding formula that doesn't cover a lot of needs in the school board — the school board needs to be creative to find new sources of revenue.”
Moscoe doesn't have an issue with the paid parking, either.
“Taxpayers have paid for those lots. They deserve to get some revenue out of them,” he said. “I don't find that difficult. As long as they don't interfere with school activities.”