Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

On-street residential parking is too cheap

The minimum size of a parking space in Toronto is 2.6 m wide x 5.6 m long. (It can change based on other factors, but this is all you need to know for today’s post.) This works out to 14.56 square meters or ~157 square feet in area for a typical spot.

Building a parking space of this size in an underground or structured parking garage is very expensive. I have seen the former cost over $200k per space once you include everything else that goes along with building below-grade parking.

However, this opinion piece reminded me that if you’d like to rent an equivalent area on the streets of Toronto, you can do that for a lot less. If it’s your first vehicle permit and you have no on-site parking where you live, the 2024 cost is $22.19 (plus HST) per month.

That works out to a monthly land rent of approximately $0.14 per square foot.

2 responses to “On-street residential parking is too cheap”

  1. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    the poor and disadvantaged have a right to park as well.

  2. Brett Walsh Avatar

    Street parking is about driving retail so as we know we see retail hubs offer free parking or validated parking subject to purchase. So there is much more to this analysis, which I know you are aware. I think the point however is also what are we giving up in the provision of street parking which is probably again moving greater in the no-cost direction in the interest of expanded sidewalks and bike lanes which as your previous blogs have argued drives retail demand.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *