Editor:
What’s going on with the parking situation in White Rock?
It seems to be an institutional disaster.
City hall is clearly unable to deal with the new reality that they’re creating with the city’s building boom.
We are situated next to a huge building site, but the city refuses to recognize that residents need some kind of parking protection from all building traffic which will happen. Faceless bureaucrats seem to only be concerned with protecting their turf rather than finding solutions.
Why is there no greater access to “permit parking”? There is always a rule to disqualify you. And our taxes keep going up.
I’m really looking forward to a new administration to clear out the cobwebs down there, the place is full of dust and dank.
A.P. Hovasse, White Rock
• • •
Citizens of White Rock are frustratingly aware of how the shrinking street-parking situation is becoming steadily worsened by highrise development.
First of all, the typical single-family curb front – capable of accommodating two to four vehicles – is being replaced with multistorey buildings where dozens of families are now competing for the same few street spaces. The same thing applies even more so to development in business districts.
But before that happens, during the construction phase, the work sites see dozens of non-resident workers scrambling for parking space anywhere they can find it. Developers and contractors, of course, give no thought for this inconvenience, which is the byproduct of their zeal to densify our city.
There is one exception. It is what will become the Semiah at the northwest corner of George and Thrift, a project by Marcon Developments. This company has made an arrangement with St. John’s Presbyterian Church for the leasing of 11 parking spaces in its parking lot less than a block from the job site. Let’s give a round of applause for one developer/contractor that is trying to do the right thing.
Perhaps the city should make this a requirement of all highrise developers… or would that just make too much sense?
(Editor’s note: Elected officials this past year have routinely asked for developers’ parking plans.)
Bill Holmes, White Rock
