Increase parking enforcement coming to downtown Ladysmith

 Virtanen says it might not be a parking problem but an enforcement problem. Photo: Province of BC / Flickr

The Town of Ladysmith is increasing parking enforcement to the downtown area to deter those who park longer than the set limit.

At a council meeting on April 2, council moved a motion to direct staff to increase parking time enforcement in the vicinity of Harmony Square (formally called Diversity Square) after receiving a report about the parking in that area.

Time limits for parking spaces in the downtown area range from 15 minutes to 24 hours.

In the report, 739 parking spots were found downtown with 677 of them being street parking. Ladysmith Fire Department collected aerial photos of the downtown using drones on various Saturdays throughout 2023. 

It was found the average utilization of parking in the downtown area is 36 per cent with peak utilization between the times of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. below 60 per cent. For the 142 parking spaces within 250 metres of  Harmony Square, the average utilization of the area is 70 per cent.

In some isolated occurrences, the utilization exceeded 85 per cent in the vicinity of the square.

Currently, the Official City Plan for Ladysmith has if average parking utilization is above the 85 per cent threshold, the town will include further parking data collection and measures such as shorter parking time limits and pay parking along with new parking facilities and transit investment.

Councillor Duck Paterson said he was surprised by the report to see the average per cent of usage in the area.

“It surprises me because I was one of those people that felt that we were 110% overused. So I'm glad to see that we're not even at 85 [per cent] most of the time,” Paterson said.

Councillor Jeff Virtanen was also surprised to see the percentages saying the lower numbers were not what he was seeing in his day-to-day.

“I have to say that part of this goes against my lived experiences, but that might just be bad timing. I've worked during the day. So I'm not here that often,” Virtanen said. “But the last few times, I showed up during the afternoon even my little secret hiding spots, even those that were taken.”

Virtanen said it might not be a parking problem but an enforcement problem that needs to be looked at.

Councillor Tricia McKay asked staff what the parking regulations were for those living in units above shops on First Avenue, which Jake Belobaba, the town’s director of development services, said there are parking regulations that would prohibit long-term parking on First Avenue.

McKay suggested a “soft campaign” to ask people to park farther away to allow those who might need to park closer to do so.

“We also have a lot of citizens who can't manage and navigate their way in and out of a vehicle on the hill and I speak from experience having had two elderly parents who are cared for,” McKay said. “Just a soft campaign around creating understanding for our own citizens, the good people of Ladysmith, to have them consider the idea of if you can manage it, park on the hill and walk a few steps, as opposed to parking directly on the main street across from the business.”

Mayor Aaron Stone said as a business owner on First Avenue he sees firsthand where the problems with the lack of enforcement are and it is not with the residential parkers.

“The majority of cars I see parked there in the areas that are marked as the most troublesome are there all day, every day, day after day, week, after week, we go and we do some spot enforcement and an improves for a week or two, and then generally falls right back into I don't think the issue that we have our customer parking, it's chronic employee and resident parking because we don't have enforcement,” Stone said.

Stone says he thinks the chronic parking issues are because of a fairly large number of chronic long-term parkers and the behaviour won't change until there is enforcement.

“Even as a business owner who's really frustrated with the parking issues in the couple of blocks there, I wouldn't call the town to invest more in more parking infrastructure, I would just ask the town to probably enforce more parking,” Stone said

The motion to direct staff to increase parking time enforcement passed unanimously.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.