Business owner concerned about downtown parking time limit extension

By Brady Grove, Times Reporter

Residents of Strathmore are now able to enjoy an additional hour of parking in the downtown core as town council passed an amendment to the bylaw on March 7 in a 4-3 vote.
However, local business owner Brian Code is concerned it will negatively affect the traffic flow for businesses.
“It’s such a retail unfriendly approach,” said Code, owner of Strathmore’s Florist. “When you remove accessibility you remove the retail competitive advantage.”
The downtown parking limit was increased to three hours from two hours. Code is worried the additional hour may prevent some people from finding parking, thus prompting them to seek businesses out of the downtown core instead.
“If 20 or 30 people plug up the parking downtown then parking becomes a massive issue,” said Code. “I’m a little saddened the town has wasted all this time discussing something that is a non-issue.”
A lack of consultation with business owners in the downtown core over the parking time limit bothered Code. He would like to see the town leave the bylaw the way it is with a two-hour limit and said he hadn’t discussed his issues with other business owners but wanted everyone to thrive.
Councillor Denise Peterson voted against increasing the time-limit and was concerned the change would negatively affect the flow of commerce in the area.
“We are still very much a driving society,” said Councillor Peterson. “Having access to parking on the main street will lend itself to greater commerce.”
Previously, discussions at council mentioned that only a few tasks in the downtown would require more than two hours; such as a hair or tattoo appointment.
According to a report given to council on March 7, Councillor Bob Sobol was provided with a petition from some business owners in the downtown core requesting the removal of time restricted parking and brought it to council on Jan. 10.
Concerns around the petition included the document not following the legal rules for municipal petitions, but Councillor Sobol felt enough residents had voiced their opinions that he would be doing a disservice by not bringing it forward.
“I didn’t bring this to council, it was something that was brought to council through me by members of the community,” said Sobol.
Sobol disagreed the increased parking limit would hurt businesses and said he thinks it will actually help business because residents would have more time to do shopping and run errands downtown.
“I supported it because I believed what the business people of downtown were saying which was the two hour parking limit was limiting their clients to spend time in the downtown area,” said Sobol. “I really felt like that argument was contrary to what we were trying to do downtown, which is to inspire and encourage people to shop downtown and support our local business people.”
According to the town nothing has changed in regards to enforcement, and the current enforcement of the parking limit is on a complaint basis.