Beachgoers best bring a buck with their bucket and spade if they’re driving to Vancouver’s Spanish Banks this summer, after the park board voted to start charging $1 per hour of parking at the popular summer spot.
On Monday night, park commissioners voted 4-1 in favour of the change, which will come into force in July and apply from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Parking fees will be reduced in the off season, from October to April, although it’s unclear what the cost will be.
There are 744 parking spaces in four parking lots at Spanish Banks, located on English Bay in the city’s West Point Grey neighbourhood.
Commissioner Tom Digby, who voted in favour of the fee, said its all about “fairness” — until now, Spanish Banks has been the only beach in the city without paid parking.
“You have to pay at every other destination park in the city,” he told CBC’s The Early Edition host Stephen Quinn Tuesday morning.
“Spanish Banks has always been an outlier and we just thought we would regularize it by charging a dollar an hour.”
Spanish Banks is the last beach in Vancouver to have free parking — but the Vancouver Park Board may end that. Now, a petition has been launched to try to keep pay parking away from the popular beach in West Point Grey.
A staff presentation suggested that nearly half of visitors to Vancouver beaches are from out of town, adding that paid parking will shift the burden of maintaining the beach to people who use it, rather than taxpayers.
Digby said parking in the city is “never free.”
“Even people who park on the road in front of the house, they’re taking up public space for their own private use,” he said.
Spanish Banks is an expensive park to operate, he added. The staff report suggests a $1 per hour charge during summer will generate $70,000 in revenue, which is still a fraction of the cost to maintain the beach, Digby said.
Park board staff will update the board in a year’s time to evaluate the success of the new fee.
The board examined pay parking at the beach in 2018, but the plan was nixed following public outcry. Then commissioner Stuart Mackinnon said the lack of accessibility drove the board’s decision to reverse its plan.