Pay parking at Spanish Banks Beach made permanent with rate increase | Daily Hive

A parking lot at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Google Maps)

After being introduced as a temporary measure starting in July 2024, pay parking at the Spanish Banks Beach parking lots in Vancouver’s West Point Grey neighbourhood will now be made permanent.

The decision was made by Vancouver Park Board commissioners in a public meeting on Monday evening, with ABC Vancouver party commissioners Angela Haer and Jas Virdi opposed.

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The initial 12-month pilot project set rates at $1 per hour across the 744 vehicle parking stalls at the parking lots of Spanish Banks Beach.

Moving forward, now that pay parking is being made permanent, Park Board commissioners endorsed an increase of the rate by 50 cents to $1.50 per hour. The rationale for the increase is to align it with the City of Vancouver’s adjacent curbside on-street pay parking rate of $1.50 per hour, which was also implemented in parallel to last year’s pay parking scheme for Spanish Banks Beach.

Commissioners approved an amendment to create a lower rate for the off-peak season.

For the period from July 2024 to May 2025, the Park Board raised approximately $168,000 from the new pay parking at the beach park, exceeding the original estimate of $121,000. With the new increased rate to $1.50 per hour, Park Board staff estimate about $255,000 will be raised per year.

Parking lots at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Google Maps)

All revenues go back into maintaining and improving Vancouver’s parks and recreation system — particularly important given the Park Board’s ongoing financial challenges. The pay parking also helps encourage turnover and reduce the spillover of parking demand into the surrounding residential streets, especially during the busy peak season.

“I think the assumption that people can store their personal asset on private land for free is an assumption that should die and that we need to move beyond. I do think it’s important to note that this area is poorly served by transit, which is why I supported Commissioner Digby’s amendment to keep the low season pricing low. The issue really here at this beach is the peak season,” said independent commissioner Laura Christensen during the deliberations.

“It is the peak summer when people are circling around trying to find a parking spot and there’s no parking spots to be found. This is a way to encourage people to find alternate means to the beach, whether that’s carpooling or transit or biking. And it’s a good way for us to generate revenue from this as well. I know that’s a very taboo subject, but you know, we want amenities in the city. We want improvements. That has to come from somewhere.”

Spanish Banks Beach and the downtown Vancouver skyline. (Josef Hanus/Shutterstock)

ABC commissioners argued that such a move adds to Vancouver’s affordability woes and impacts families looking for low-barrier activities.

“We pay everywhere in the city of Vancouver. Every inch I feel like you gotta pay for parking, you gotta pay for whatever you do. This was the one last spot in Vancouver where there was no charge. It was very low barrier. It was a place for families to come out and enjoy it for free. And there’s not much that’s free for our children and our seniors these days. So I think as a city as a whole, we need to strike a balance. There should be some place where we can find places that are free,” said ABC commissioner Jas Virdi during the deliberations.

ABC commissioner Angela Haer added, “So this is just going to increase and the cost of living here is going to increase. We’re going to lose locals to other cities. People are just going to start leaving and we have to do the right thing and we just put a stop to this… We want to maintain our city, but we also want to keep a couple of beaches for free.”

Earlier this month, the Park Board completed a daylighted and naturalized segment of Canyon Creek through Spanish Banks Beach, which now runs into Burrard Inlet from the surface instead of a culvert. The project cost about $1.2 million and necessitated the removal of about 65 vehicle parking stalls.

And just before this past weekend, situated to the east, the Jericho Pier reopened to the public after a closure of more than three years, following the completion of extensive repairs following storm damage in early 2022.

New daylighted and naturalized area of Canyon Creek at Spanish Banks Beach Park. (Vancouver Park Board)

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