The ward 3 councillor for the City of Windsor wants administration to review parking lot requirements for developments.
Renaldo Agostino has asked for a report to come back to council with what an opportunity would look like to decrease parking requirements for new builds, especially in the downtown core.
He says while the city is the midst of a housing crisis, developers are still weary to build with the current rate of inflation, and that parking can add significant costs to new builds.
He adds that people are starting to steer away from vehicles by using public transit, or other forms of transportation such as cycling or walking.
New builds typically have between 1 and 1.5 parking spaces per unit, but don't always offer amenities such as bike parking.
Agostino says he's already had builders come to him asking if there's a chance to loosen the parking requirements.
"It's the money. And they think that the demand is there, they think the demand is there and they'll be able to sell these units without a parking space, which in turn will save them millions of dollars, which in turn means that building potentially gets built a lot quicker than the rest, which of course helps us with what we're dealing with right now in the housing crisis."
He says having bike parking at these developments would be great.
"And that's the direction we're going in. When you see the electrification of things, and it's not just vehicles - scooters, bikes, all these different modes of transportation are going to change the way we live and work. So when you look at this as a builder, it should be up to the builder to determine whether he or she wants to take that risk of building more units, rather than building more parking spaces."
The ward 3 councillor adds that parking costs a lot of additional money.
"If we take away that requirement, or lessen that requirement, then the builder has more incentive to choose Windsor and say 'okay, well I'm going to build on Windsor's waterfront, or I'm going to build in downtown Windsor, because whatever the parking requirement may be, 30 or 40 per cent, if we take that down to 20 or 15 [per cent], then it's up to the buyer. It shouldn't be something that the municipality should have to mandate in my opinion."
Agostino adds that while underground parking is a great option for smaller lots in the city, specifically downtown, the cost to install underground spots is very expensive.
He says he's hoping a report will come back to council as soon as possible due to the current state of the housing crisis.