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“These new regulations mean more choice for everyone — seniors, students, single parents, families and individuals,” said the city’s senior planner, Anne Stevenson. “Now homeowners can decide the appropriate amount of parking to meet their needs and how they want to put their property to its best use.”

But in mature neighbourhoods, where infill has caused debates over things such as trees, setbacks and lot-splitting, parking availability could add another wedge between neighbours.

“Some of the neighbourhoods it’s pretty tight and it’s going to be an issue, and some of the neighbourhoods, it’s not going to be an issue,” Oshry said, adding it’s difficult to make different rules for different neighbourhoods. “It’s just one of the things we’re going to have to deal with.”

He said he doesn’t see parking being more of an issue than any others in mature areas and praised city staff for improving their performance in recent years.

“The city’s working pretty hard to try and come up with a plan that still encourages infill, but doesn’t make it extremely onerous for the infill builders,” Oshry said. “It’s going to change mature neighbourhoods to some degree, but we’re really trying to mitigate that as much as possible, but still allow it to happen.”

Relaxing the parking rules could also lead to happier residents, according to Charles Montgomery and his research assistant Houssam Elokda, authors of the book Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through urban design. In it, the pair argue that increasing density in mature neighbourhoods and making them more walkable will eventually save younger people from long commutes into the downtown and improve overall happiness.

The new rules are expected to be presented to council for their consideration next year. No changes will take place without council approval.

dlazzarino@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/SUNDaveLazz