Metro Vancouver parking construction costs top $230,000 per stall | Daily Hive

Construction costs for parking stalls in new Metro Vancouver residential buildings hit up to $230,000

October 2023 construction progress on the first phase of Gilmore Place in Burnaby, revealing a deep underground parkade. Gilmore Place is located next to SkyTrain's Gilmore Station in Burnaby. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The cost to build parking stalls within a new residential development in Metro Vancouver can add considerably to the overall construction cost of a project.

According to a new preliminary report by Metro Vancouver Regional District, developers in the region have experienced extremely high construction costs of up to $230,000 per parking stall. The upper end of such costs is due to poor soil conditions and higher water tables, with such provided parking supply often built within an underground parkade.

Often, the extent of deep excavations to build the required parking supply stipulated by the minimum parking requirements of municipal governments adds greatly to construction costs.

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The report acknowledges that onerous parking requirements can impact a project’s pro forma, potentially making it financially unviable. In such a scenario, a developer might choose not to pursue the project rather than attempt to pass the increased construction costs onto homebuyers. This, in turn, would have a long-term effect on housing affordability by reducing the potential supply of new housing.

“More parking does increase the cost of housing — not because the costs are ‘passed along,’ but because, like any amenity, it makes the unit more functional and marketable. An increase of 1.2 stalls per unit requires an additional $35,000 in annual household income, on average, to qualify for the associated mortgage,” reads the report.

Reinforced SkyTrain columns foundations at the deep construction pit of Gilmore Place’s first phase to achieve its underground parkade. Gilmore Place is located next to SkyTrain’s Gilmore Station in Burnaby. (Chris Neima/submitted)

With that said, regional district staff also state that “there is no guarantee that homebuilders would ‘pass along savings’ [to homebuyers] in the absence of minimum parking requirements,” as home prices are based on demand, not developer costs. For this reason, “developers are equally unable to ‘pass along costs’ for this same reason.”

In June 2024, Vancouver City Council endorsed recommendations by City of Vancouver staff to axe minimum vehicle parking requirements for all types of uses across the city — not just residential, but all types of land uses, such as the non-residential uses of office, hotel, retail/restaurant, services, other commercial, and industrial. This builds on the previous removal of minimum vehicle parking requirements in downtown Vancouver’s Central Business District and the West End Plan area, as well as the Broadway Plan area. Furthermore, Vancouver’s municipal government already had reduced minimum vehicle parking requirements for certain policies for secured purpose-built rental housing.

Additionally, the provincial government’s newly enacted transit-oriented development legislation designating transit-oriented areas (TOAs) and small-scale multi-family housing legislation have banned BC’s municipal governments from creating minimum vehicle parking requirements for new residential buildings in the TOAs.

LII LA/Shutterstock | Perkins&Will

The regional district states it is currently working with TransLink to create a new Regional Parking Strategy, which is expected to be finalized by the middle of 2025. Municipal governments will use such a strategy to help develop and update local parking policies.

According to the preliminary findings, actual parking space use in Metro Vancouver’s residential buildings ranges from 0.65 vehicles per dwelling unit to 1.91 vehicles per dwelling unit, depending on location within the region.

The parking stall utilization rate decreases near frequent or rapid transit, especially for rental housing. Within secured purpose-built market rental housing buildings, the utilization rate is 0.49 vehicles per unit near public transit, and this rate increases to 0.85 vehicles per unit for such buildings located away from public transit.

For comparison, within strata residential buildings, the utilization rate is 0.89 vehicles per unit near public transit and 1.15 vehicles per unit away from public transit.

The regional district estimates parking is “oversupplied” by 47% in strata residential buildings and by 35% in secured purpose-built market rental housing buildings, on average.

“The two key factors influencing parking supply (beyond bylaw compliance) are product type (e.g. strata versus rental) and proximity to transit (especially SkyTrain),” reads the report.

A 2023 private sector-led study by NAIOP, Bunt & Associates Engineering, and local developer Beedie found that industrial sites across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley are “oversupplied” with parking by 50%.

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