needed. There may be circumstances where a one-size-fits-all parking requirement results in excess land dedicated to parking that might otherwise be used for additional housing or amenity space.

Reduced off-street parking requirements can lead to lower development costs, potentially free up land for additional units, and reduce the cost of housing for residents. There are already reduced parking requirements in the City’s Zoning Bylaw for the Central Business District (CBD) and the Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) in recognition of a concentration of services within walking distance and convenient access to transit.

The City of Belleville has formalized the idea of reducing parking for affordable housing by implemented a policy that allows for the reduction of parking. They did so after thoroughly studying the issue, and answering the following questions:

• Whether affordable rental housing required the same level of parking as market housing;

• If the existing parking standards caused additional expense to developers;

• Under what circumstances should reduced parking standards for affordable rental housing be considered;

• How reduced requirements were beneficial in Belleville or elsewhere; and,

• How the City could effectively implement reduced parking requirements for affordable housing?

One of the outcomes of the study was to determine that reducing the parking requirements for medium and high density affordable rental housing projects through the minor variance process. All minor variance applications for reduced parking will be evaluated based upon the criterion established through the Affordable Rental Housing Reduced Parking Guide which was being developed to assist Staff and the Committee of Adjustment members in their considerations of such applications. At the time of this report, the City of Belleville was considering the following guidelines to incentivize purpose built affordable rental housing:

• Grant a variance to medium and high density affordable rental housing that achieves between 0.5 – 0.75 parking spaces per unit in walkable and transit accessible neighbourhoods, which would bring the number of parking spaces in Belleville closer to the parking provided in the case studies (that were part of the study undertaken).

  • Walkable neighbourhoods should be defined as neighbourhoods that have amenities that may meet the daily needs of a tenant within a 5 to 10 minute walk (400 – 800 metre radius) of the proposed development. Amenities considered to meet daily needs could include grocery stores, Page 12 of 17