Parking is one of those topics that people can feel very passionate about, whether people believe we have too much or too little parking. In Langley City today, most of our community north of the Nicomekl River does not have minimum parking requirements for residential use per provincial law as they are within provincial designated transit-oriented areas.
Building residential parking, especially in apartments, is expensive. Many numbers have been used over the years to quantify the cost of underground parking. The Metro Vancouver Regional District recently commissioned a study to determine the cost per stall.
The cost ranges from $117,382 to $137,721 per apartment stall. It might seem surprising initially, but parking is more expensive per stall in communities with higher per-unit parking requirements. This cost does make sense. Building a two-storey underground parkade is far more expensive than a one-storey parkade. With new six-storey wood-frame apartments in Langley City, parkades range from one to two stories.
The regional district also updated its apartment parking utilization study. Below are the results for South of Fraser Communities.
| Municipality | Residential Stall/Unit (Sampled) | Residential Stall Utilization | Visitor Stall Utilization |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta | 1.39 | 72% | 47% |
| Langley City | 1.27 | 75% | 57% |
| Langley Township | 1.37 | 63% | 41% |
| Surrey | 1.31 | 70% | 40% |
| White Rock | 1.8 | 59% | 35% |
The parking utilization for residential parking demand was surveyed between 11:00 pm and 1:00 am, and visitor parking demand was surveyed between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm.
While Langley City Council does not control residential minimum parking requirements in most areas designated for apartments, there are still a few small areas outside the provincial designated transit-oriented areas that we do. A reduction in our residential parking to one parking space per unit for apartment buildings in these areas could reduce per-unit costs around $30,000, helping with affordability while providing adequate parking based on actual utilization.
To clarify, the study did not look at parking costs or utilization for townhouses, 'plexes, or detached homes.