Dear editor,
Hospital pay parking may cost city tax dollars and stress to the City of Courtenay, residents and staff.
The hospital is surrounded by free patron parking at retail locations, schools and residential areas. Pay parking instituted in such an area is a substantial change inconsistent with the current condition. A glance at ‘Google Earth’ suggests available parking within 800 metres is 10 times, or more, than parking within the property.
The hospital argument is that revenue is needed for parking lot maintenance and perhaps other health care costs. However, in no other institution or business is a parking lot anything else but a normal business expense.
As suggested above, people who wish not to pay for parking will simply flow into surrounding areas. Queneesh school will fill up on non-instructional days. Where will soccer parents park?
With pay parking, residents in the area will request a ‘resident parking only’ amendment to the current bylaws. A necessity to protect their neighborhoods and sanity. However, such a zoning bylaw will require an immense amount of work to enforce. It is not the library. The hospital is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Bylaw enforcement would be necessary after business hours, weekends, and holidays, all year. Current staffing could not handle the workload in such an area. Added staff would strain the current budget and perhaps result in raising city property taxes.
And then there is the stress added to city bylaw officers, city staff who answer phone calls dealing with conflicts between hospital visitors parking in neighbourhoods and irate resident homeowners when they discover themselves, or their own visitors, have to park blocks away. That stress on the community is not insignificant.
Council saw this and voted to ban pay parking. I commend them.
Larry Cosman
Courtenay