[Sue Johnson]

Planning to park your car in Deep Cove this summer? Options for visitors are about to become fewer and farther between.

District staff say there are about 910 total street parking spaces within the neighbourhood, 770 of which have no restrictions on them today. Under the new rules, 350 will be for residents only with a $35-per vehicle, per year permit (limit of two per household with extra available for guests). Another 280 will have time limits for visitors that residents are exempt from, and 110 will be open to anyone but time limited.

Generally speaking, the new seasonal rules will be in effect for the streets west of Deep Cove Road past Cliffmont Road, Mt. Seymour Parkway and Strathcona Road to Strathcona Lookout Park, and the streets around Cliffmont Road and Covecliff Road as far as Roxbury Place. Year-round resident only parking will remain for Panorama Drive, Caledonia Avenue, Eastleigh Lane and Banbury Road.

The rules are expected to be in place before peak season arrives in 2024.

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[Richard Merchant]

This is interesting and merely an example of what is happening everywhere.   I see it as a ‘local politician’ thing, trying to curry favour with local residents, or responding to local pressure groups (that can be quite effective).

This results in the principle that local residents own not only their properties, but also (effectively) the streets in front of their properties and are therefore entitled to priority access to those streets (i.e. for parking their cars) instead of being expected to park their cars on their own designated personal property, and otherwise public property is actually “public”.  So the politicians introduce these special rules for the public streets.  It doesn’t matter whether other entities that pay for street construction and maintenance – the local businesses, public utilities such as hospitals, and so on – have a certain moral need of those parking spaces too.

I would assume that Deep Cove Kayaking will suffer from this proposal too.  And the restaurants and other local services.  And other simple users such as hikers, kayakers and other park users.

Someone should represent those other people at council.  Hard to reverse these policies however.  And the downstream effects will likely be harmful to many.

[Author]

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