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One side of street parking restriction being enacted in Orangeville this fall

June 30, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

Parking on both sides of the street is about to be a thing of the past for many roadways currently allowing it in Orangeville

Council unanimously approved a motion that restricts parking to one side of the street during a regular meeting on Monday (June 27).

Streets that currently do not allow parking on either side or are already restricted to one side won’t be impacted. Same with streets that have parking stalls.

Signage is being purchased and installed over the next few months, with the new parking bylaw anticipated to go into effect around late October or early November.

Something that’s not included in the new bylaw but will be coming forward at a later date, according to Coun. Todd Taylor, is time limits for parked vehicles.

“The reason I’m so passionate about this is now we’re going to have one side of the street parking. We already know from our residents that parking is an issue. I mean, there’s four car families in town and I’m certainly sympathetic to that. The issue is you cannot park in certain areas for two or three weeks at a time in the non-winter months. That’s just not fair to others,” Coun. Taylor said.

“Time limits need to come forward at an eventual time for all of us to consider and hopefully at some point implement.”

Coun. Taylor also noted that there’s no parking on both sides of Second Street and Fourth Avenue, and that it should be switched to having one side parking going forward.

Mayor Sandy Brown explained that there’s a historical context for the parking restrictions on those streets, with a racetrack formally being in close proximity to them many years ago.

“People were deciding to park on the street rather than paying for parking at the racetrack,” he said.

In light of this, Mayor Brown asked Town staff if a report could come back in the future to see if that restriction could be lifted.

“We’ve had some – more than one – complaint from residents saying, if you’re going to put one side parking, let’s do it, but they’re affected, as Councillor Taylor has said, with both sides of the streets being prohibited,” he explained.   

Coun. Debbie Sherwood made note of the bylaw’s flexibility, if concerns from residents arise.

“One of the things we have to make the people aware [of] is, this could be subject to further change if things don’t work out, or things need to be corrected,” she said. “We’re open to having them corrected once we see that because we don’t live on every one of these streets to see how it’s how it’s going to implement.”

The Town will be ramping up its community outreach and communications with respect to the one side of street parking restriction to help residents become informed of the change before it happens. This will be done through the communications division, website, and social media channels.

The Town’s phone lines will also be open to document any concerns residents have.

The one side of street parking bylaw is anticipated to go into effect by early November.

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