Ed. note: this is the second part of a two-part submission from Whitehorse businessman Art Webster to Mayor Bev Buckway and city council.

The first part was published Wednesday. The hearing the writer refers to occurred Monday evening.

Re: Public Hearing on Bylaw 2008-31

The City of Whitehorse is in the business of parking.

It has a monopoly on meters for parking, sets the rates for, issues, and collects parking fines, passes bylaws regulating parking, creates policy on taxation in commercial core areas in exchange for providing services like parking, and has established a Capital Reserve Parking Fund (C.R.P.F.).

The time has come for council, with its domineering position on the matter, to take a positive role in providing more parking spaces downtown.

I suggest city council start by removing the $1-million cap on the C.R.P.F., and dedicating its contents for the expressed and sole purpose of building a parkade in the downtown core.

Accept the fact that a parkade will have to be built sooner rather than later, so start saving money for it now.

And city council can be instrumental in making a downtown that is vibrant and diversified in its offerings of businesses and entertainment by introducing measures which will make it more inviting for citizens and visitors to park in the downtown core.

Such measures I am recommending for council's consideration is to encourage people to park in a responsible manner, and to remove all parking meters.

Yes, I am proposing there be parking free of charge in downtown Whitehorse - just as it is at the Qwanlin Mall, the Yukon Plaza, and the Argus property site - but for a period of two hours maximum.

At first blush, this may appear to be a radical idea. But if one considers the cost savings to be realized, the ease of application and enforcement of a no-meter/two-hour maximum parking policy, and the benefits to be derived by businesses in the downtown area, this proposal has merits.

An argument to justify the implementation of this recommendation can be based on the substantial amount of savings to the city.

For one, the city will not have to buy the new parking meters scheduled for 2008 at a cost of $146,632 which will take, by city administration estimates, 1 1/2 years to pay off.

Also, the city will not be required to replace over the next two years all older units that are either obsolete as a result of increasing rates or have maintenance problems.

By abandoning the plan to install pay stations at $20,000 apiece at strategic locations throughout the downtown area, the savings are estimated to be in the order of $200,000 to $250,000.

Overall, the savings to the city just in capital expenditures for meters over the next few years are in the neighbourhood of half a million dollars.

And of course the city would not have to pay wages and benefits to staff who regularly do required maintenance on meters, and who remove coins.

Revenues would accrue to the city from those who violate the two-hour maximum free parking privilege, which would be monitored by bylaw officers as they do now. A $25-fine is a fitting penalty. Naturally, all money realized from fines would be contributed to the C.R.P.F.

As for the bylaw before council which is the subject of the public hearing, I offer the following comments.

When buildings in the downtown core commercial area were erected, zoning allowed for the entirety of the lot to be occupied by the building.

This eliminated the possibility to provide parking to serve the business operation in the building.

Because the building covered the entire lot, the appraised value of the property would be high, and so too would be the taxes.

In exchange for the additional money realized from these high tax bills, the city would provide services needed by businesses in the downtown core commercial area such as parking.

However, the city has not, over the years, provided parking in addition to the few metered spaces on the street which faces the lot.

Now when a new property owner wants to redevelop the building for a different use, and of course no new permanent parking space can be provided, the new property owner must pay, under current zoning bylaws, the sum of $18,706 per required space.

In review:

• the property owner has been and will continue to pay high taxes on this building in the downtown core commercial;

• the property owner is required to pay a total of $205,766 in lieu of providing 11 parking spaces; and

• the property owner has no guarantee that any of this money will ever be used by the city to provide additional permanent parking spaces to ensure improved customer access into his/her place of business.

So who wants to be this property owner?

I believe if entrepreneurs are not assured by council that the city will, with their tax dollars and contributions through Zoning Bylaw 2006-01, provide parking to improve customer access into their retail operations, restaurants, and places of business, then existing older buildings will not be redeveloped to meet society's changing needs.

Without such redevelopment, downtown will lose its appeal as a place to shop and do business, and real estate values will be negatively affected.

In closing, I find it ironic that council is re-directing money that was initially budgeted for studies related to the provision of a downtown parkade.

This money will now be used to produce an economic development strategy for the city.

Ironic because the unintended consequences of imposing Bylaw 2006-1 on the redevelopment of core commercial-zoned buildings, coupled with council's policies which don't support either vehicle use or the creation of new permanent parking spaces downtown, may force mayor and council to focus its economic development strategies on revitalizing an economically anemic downtown.

Thank you.