You can’t park your car there, but you can park yourself.

For the first time in Toronto, some parking spots will be transformed into “parklets” where pedestrians can sit, eat and relax.

Eight will be installed along the east side of Church St. in July and August. The parklets will sit on wooden decks level with the sidewalks and will include tables, benches, chairs and planters. Half will serve as licensed, extended patios for adjacent businesses, while the rest will be unlicensed and open to the public.

One will span six parking spots between Wellesley and Maitland Sts., and another will extend across seven spaces between Maitland and Alexander Sts. Parklets will also be installed just north of Wellesley and between Gloucester and Monteith Streets.

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam said the project’s goal is to use underutilized parking to animate the street, boost neighbourhood pride, improve pedestrian life and bring more business to merchants.

“There has been a lot of talk about the village being on a decline, that the Church and Wellesley Village is no longer relevant because gay people can live anywhere and everywhere,” she said. “So this is in many ways a response to that — please come and visit and experience us through a whole different way.”

Wong-Tam said this initiative is a departure from last year’s Celebrate Yonge festival, which closed one lane in each direction to create pedestrian spaces with chairs, tables and planters. This year, the aesthetics will be more refined and traffic will not be affected, Wong-Tam said.

Parklets launched in San Francisco in 2010 and have grown in popularity in cities such as Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Oakland and Philadelphia.

In Vancouver, the initiative has been well received. Kerry Bonnis, owner of Café Crepe in Vancouver, said the parklet in front of his restaurant has become a popular attraction. But, although he financed the parklet, the increased foot traffic has not led to more sales.

“People come and sit on it with their Starbucks coffee,” he said. “But do we support it? Yes, we do, because it's a great public amenity and we do believe it does draw attention to our restaurant.”

In Toronto, the project is a collaboration among local businesses, community members and the city. The Church-Wellesley Village business improvement area (BIA) and the 519 Community Centre will be financing and installing four parklets on July 19 and the city will add another four in mid-August. They are expected to remain until the end of October.

Matthew Cutler, director of development and community engagement for the 519 Community Centre, estimates the cost for the first four parklets will be about $80,000. Much of it has been offset through sponsorships from partners like Home Depot and the Carpenter’s Union Local 27, Wong-Tam said.

Mark Van Elsberg, an urban designer in the city’s Public Realm office and the project manager for the parklets, said it’s unclear how much the project will cost the city, but the price of one parklet typically falls between $8,000 and $12,000.

He said that, usually, displacing a parking space costs the city about $6,000 in lost revenue. But the reinstatement of parking on the west side of Jarvis St. last year left the city with a surplus that made the parklets possible.

Although parking spaces have traditionally been seen as precious real estate for merchants, Van Elsberg said the boost in foot-traffic will actually benefit businesses.

“There's a perception that a parking space is incredibly valuable for a storefront, but the majority of shopping is actually done by people who walk there and are local inhabitants,” Van Elsberg said.

Paul Beggs, owner of Byzantium on 499 Church St., said he’s excited about the possibility of having a parklet in front of his business because it would expand outdoor seating.

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“I would love to have one,” he said. “My expectation is that it would really boost our business for the summer.”

Christopher De Sousa, an urban planning professor at Ryerson University, said parklets are a step toward envisioning a more pedestrian-friendly city, and he hopes the trend will grow.

“It’s a place to congregate, a place to sit, a place to have lunch that is an escape from the concrete and the glass,” he said. “I really think it could point toward what better landscapes and better streetscapes could do in our city.”