Victoria councillors eye ‘underutilized’ downtown parkade for rooftop garden

Three Victoria city councillors are asking staff to consider putting a rooftop garden on the Johnson Street Parkade, where they say parking spaces are regularly vacant.

The motion from councillors Dave Thompson, Krista Loughton and Jeremy Caradonna will be considered at a committee of the whole meeting on Thursday.

There are roughly 1,900 parking stalls across the city’s five downtown parkades. Hundreds of those stalls are typically empty, according to the motion.

The parkade at 750 Johnson Street has 272 spaces, and the motion says several dozen are generally available at any given time.

“The Victoria Downtown Residents Association (DRA) advised that daily average occupancy of the Johnson Street Parkade exceeded 250 vehicles only three times between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays,” the motion reads.

“It appears that the Johnson Street Parkade rooftop represents valuable but underutilized publicly owned space in the heart of the downtown neighbourhood.”

Thompson said the DRA brought forward the idea for a community garden a few years ago.

“The parkades are often several hundred empty units on any given day during work hours,” Thompson said in an interview with CTV News.

“People actually want to park on the street; they want to park closer to where they’re going to go shopping.”

Councillors are seeking staff input on the pilot project, which could take up 16 stalls. The space would accommodate between 67 and 100 garden plots.

The Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA) said the neighbourhood needs more parking, not less.

“When it first came to my attention, I lit my hair on fire,” DVBA CEO Jeff Bray said.

After reading the motion, he has a more measured response.

“It does talk about 16 parking spots on the top floor, which is maybe not the end of the world,” Bray said.

“But I think philosophically, it’s a concern any time there’s a thought of taking away parking that supports our businesses.”

The residents association said downtown is in dire need of green space.

“There are very, very few — maybe less than a handful — places with any sort of a yard in this neighbourhood,” said DRA President Sandra Severs.

The association operates the Yates Street Community Garden, which Severs said has a wait-list of 160 people.

“Since (the parkade) is an underutilized space, being able to use 16 parking spaces for a garden seemed like a good idea to us,” she said.

If approved, the pilot project will assess community interest, volunteer capacity, growing conditions and site maintenance.

Before moving forward, city staff would independently verify the parking data gathered by the DRA.