In February 2016, WATT Consulting Group was retained to complete a comprehensive review and update of the City of Victoria’s Off-Street Parking Regulations to better align regulations with policies in the Official Community Plan and to reduce the frequency and magnitude of parking variances in new development.

The review process was focused on an extensive original data collection and analysis process that aimed to understand local parking demand characteristics through review of over 200 multi-family residential, commercial, and hospital sites. The analysis included testing of factors that influence parking demand, such as location, unit size, tenure, and proximity to public transit. The results directly influenced the minimum parking supply rates included in the updated regulations.

Extensive stakeholder and public engagement was included in the process to identify and test innovations for inclusion in the new Schedule C. These included studying local demographics to determine if more barrier free parking was needed than what was prescribed in the BC Building Code at the time, options to require electric vehicle charging facilities, conditions for carshare in multi-family residential uses, and ensuring landscape and pedestrian facilities in surface parking lots.