October 19, 2007
www.yorkregion.com - By Caroline Grech

Give us parking spaces, merchants tell town.

Spots for cars key to downtown future, retailers insist.

If downtown Richmond Hill is to become a shoppers’ paradise, it’s going to need more parking lots, residents and business owners said Thursday at a meeting on revitalizing the downtown core.

The plea for more parking was a key message at a meeting of the downtown task force, where shopkeepers told of customers getting parking tickets and other clients being lost to the mall not far from the Yonge Street and Major Mackenzie Drive retail strip.

“You’re in competition with the mall to the south of you that has lots of parking. A good idea would be to scatter parking around the downtown,” Paul Fogolin, a downtown property owner suggested.

His comments echoed those of many business owners at the meeting at Elgin Barrow Arena.

“I have people who get tickets at lunch,” Ralf Weyler, owner of Cafe en Passant said. “I have a guy getting tickets after one hour.”

According to town staff, there are 1,200 parking spaces in the downtown area.

The town is studying a business case for moving municipal offices back to the downtown core from East Beaver Creek Drive.

The new Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts is slated to open Oct. 15, 2008, and will include 250 spaces, the filled-to-capacity meeting was told.

However, many thought parking needed to be tackled in a bigger way.

Mike Daigle, a 15-year Richmond Hill resident, said there is enough parking in the downtown, but argued there needs to be better signs to identify it.

Mr. Daigle expressed concerns the plans for the new Renaissance condominium, on the east side of Yonge Street just north of Major Mackenzie and the new arts centre about farther north on the west side of Yonge, will change the character of the downtown core.

“Richmond Hill is beautiful, it’s on a hill with church steeples. It has a skyline, the Rennaissance is too big,” Mr. Daigle said, adding he felt betrayed the town approved a seven-storey building when it was initially supposed to be four storeys.

Among the priorities for the downtown task force is to start a Business Improvement Association.

A BIA helps businesses promote themselves and gain access to specific services. There is a levy for all businesses that fall within a BIA’s geographic area. Membership is not optional.

Mayor Dave Barrow stressed a strong BIA is one of the elements that will help business downtown.

“Many comparisons have been made to towns like Streetsville and Oakville tonight and these towns have very strong BIAs,” Mr. Barrow said, adding improvement to the downtown has to be a team effort.

“What we’ve heard tonight is what is wrong with downtown. It has to come from all of us. We (the town) are making all kinds of investments and we want to get people walking downtown,” Mr. Barrow said. “We need the business owners to get to together and promote themselves.”

Parking woes weren’t the only concerns expressed by residents at the meeting.

Mary Cipolla moved to the neighbourhood six months ago and wants to see more variety in the type of stores on Yonge Street.

“Unless I want to go get my nails done downtown at the 10 different places or get a couple of adult videos, there’s not much to do,” Ms Cipolla said.

Ms Cipolla moved to the area because she wants to live in a neighbourhood where she can walk to amenities.

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