The time has come for tourists to say farewell to free parking in Ucluelet.
The district is set to impose a $10 flat-rate, daily parking fee to all travellers from outside the West Coast region.
Ucluelet and electoral Area C residents will be exempt from the fees as will members of local First Nations, including Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ, Toquaht, Tla-o-qui-aht, Ahousaht, and Hesquiaht.
Tofino residents will also be exempt, but will be charged a $50 annual registration fee.
The town’s municipal council began sniffing around the possibility of parking fees in February of last year as a way to cover expenses like infrastructure upgrades without asking local taxpayers to foot the entire bill.
Council agreed to have their staff take a look at the feasibility of fees, but was split when a staff report arrived on their desk in June, voting 3-2 in favour of moving ahead with a visitor pay parking program.
When the district’s Chief Administrative Officer Duane Lawrence presented a pay parking plan on Oct. 29 however, council’s support was unanimous.
“I was one of the strongest opponents of this idea and I’m not going to say I’ve done a 180, but I have essentially changed my mind and I’ve done so based, in part, on many conversations that I’ve had with folks in town, the majority of whom expressed support for this,” said Coun. Mark Maftei, who had been one of the two votes opposed to parking fees in June.
“I know that there was a lot of discussion and debate about our recent tax increase and I think everyone in town sort of took it on the chin quite admirably because, I think, everyone understands the challenges we’re facing as far as our infrastructure. This is really one of the only other sources of revenue that we have access to. I think it would not only be wise to take advantage of it, but more importantly I think it sends the right message. If we’re going to ask people who live here to pony up more and more tax dollars to deal with our infrastructure issues, it would almost be irresponsible not to extend that same tax through the mechanisms at our disposal to the visitors to our community who are actually impacting that infrastructure more than the residents here.”
Coun. Shawn Anderson suggested a strong communications campaign would be needed to help people understand that the fees being collected would help the community pay for needed infrastructure upgrades while easing the burden on local taxpayers.
“I’ve obviously had a couple of community members that share a certain consternation with having pay parking as many people do,” he said. “One of the things that I tell them is we know why we do this, there’s tourists that use our infrastructure and we’re on the hook for that. This helps in that regard. Our taxes have gone up because we’re facing these other infrastructure changes.”
Coun. Ian Kennington said some residents might be reluctant to accept the move, suggesting parking fees represent a change in how the community operates.
“That’s hard for some people and it’s hard for me as well, but I can’t look past the fact that we do need the revenue and we are staring some pretty large bills in the face,” he said.
Lawrence said council will have the final say on how the parking fee revenue is spent, adding that any money coming in would be money the district would not need to ask taxpayers for.
“Whether or not they’re related to increased demand resulting partially from tourism or just community growth or renewal of community assets, those funds will help offset the future costs to taxpayers,” he said.
Ucluelet’s pay parking program will look noticeably different than neighbouring Tofino’s and Lawrence explained the two town’s are pursuing different goals with their fees.
“There’s a significant difference between Ucluelet and Tofino. Tofino has parking challenges and traffic challenges and they’re trying to encourage people to move their vehicles within the downtown core. We, at times, it’s sometimes hard to find a parking spot, but it’s pretty rare that you can’t find a parking spot near to the place that you need or want to visit,” he said. “We’re not trying to move vehicles around, we’re just encouraging them to contribute to some of the infrastructure costs associated with the municipality and visitations.”
Tofino launched pay parking at its local beaches in 2021 and across its community in 2023, charging an hourly rate of $3 at beaches and $2.50 in town with residents of Tofino, Ahousaht, Opitsaht, Esowista, Hesquiaht and Tyhistanis exempt from the fees.
Tofino charges residents of Ucluelet, Hitacu, Macoah and the Alberni Clayoquot Regional District, including Electoral Area C and Port Alberni $60 for an annual parking pass.
While specifically charging Tofino residents $50 with all other West Coasters free from fees could be seen as a cheeky poke at Tofino for making Ucluetians pay to park, Lawrence explained the registration fee would cover administration expenses.
Arriving at a $10 daily charge
Lawrence had recommended an $8 daily rate with annual 50 cent increases, suggesting that starting small would help introduce the program and give the fees time to marinate before hitting tourist’s travel budgets too hard.
“There were recommendations from proponents ‘Don’t go too high too fast because people need time to absorb it,’” he said.
Council all sang for a higher fee in unison, agreeing to a $10 charge out of the gate.
Coun. Maftei argued that if the point of parking fees was to raise money for the district, a higher rate made more sense and suggested tourists coming to the West Coast are already choosing an expensive destination.
“If we want to do them a favour then let’s just not charge them for parking at all. If the point of the program is to do ourselves a favour as a community, then let’s start at $10-$12 a day and up,” he said.
“I don’t necessarily see that there’s a problem with trying to pick a daily value that is starting to bump up against maybe even being a deterrent as far as the people who are worried about congestion. Certainly it’s going to satisfy anyone who wants to see this as a viable source of revenue. I’d skew high, personally.”
He added that the residents he’d spoken to in favour of the fees either felt there was too much parking congestion in the summer or supported adding a new revenue stream for the district.
Coun. Kennington asked if the rate could fluctuate seasonally, giving a break to off-season travellers.
“There’s a lot of people who travel on a budget and go off-season and they pick places like here because it’s cheaper to stay in a place, it’s cheaper to eat, it should probably be cheaper to park,” he said. “I would hate to drive off any offseason business that is coming to our community. The summer doesn’t matter; we won’t be able to keep people away anyway but, in the shoulder seasons, it could be more challenging.”
Coun. Anderson also cautioned that high parking fees could deter day trippers from coming into Ucluelet from Tofino or beyond to shop, eat and visit the Ucluelet Aquarium.
Kennington agreed that adding a $10 charge to day trippers bills might drive some away, but Maftei reiterated that the town is not an inexpensive destination option.
“I hear your point; I just don’t know too many people that are on a budget that come to Tofino or Ucluelet on vacation. I don’t see this as a budget destination,” Maftei said.
The aquarium’s curator Laura Griffith-Cochrane was in attendance at the meeting and said she hears from many visitors who choose Ucluelet for day trips because of its relative affordability.
“I am in favour of this. I do think that we should be covering our infrastructure costs because we’re a small community, but interacting with the public everyday, we get so many people that come down from Tofino and so many people that come up from Port Alberni and there is so much love for our community. They choose us because we’re more affordable than Tofino,” she said. “It’s easy to say that, ‘If they can afford to come out here then they can afford this,’ but there’s a lot of people that plan around us regularly and if we start to increase it too much, then they’ll start pulling back…I get a lot of people that talk about, ‘We used to go to Tofino but it’s too expensive for us. We come here now.’”
She added she had “a bit of fear” around setting the fee too high and “scaring people off,” adding that Ucluelet should not just be for the wealthy.
“I think a lot about who does this space belong to and it shouldn’t just be for the people that can afford the utmost of cost. It should also be for the people that can make it here on a really tight budget, go camping and make all of their own food,” she said. “That’s the kind of travel that I had as a kid. We didn’t go out to restaurants, but I loved it and I came out here all the time. That’s why I live out here now.”
Despite those fears, council ultimately and unanimously agreed to the $10 rate.
“I don’t think $10 a day is going to scare off the off-season travellers. I really don’t,” McEwen said.
CAO Lawrence said staff would look into a decreased rate in the offseason as well as possible higher rates for recreational vehicles.
The fees are expected to be introduced next spring.
“We’re not in a rush to get it done by January or February,” Lawrence said, adding the hope is to have the program in place by March.
Fines for fee skippers
Anyone caught not paying the $10 fee will face a $50 penalty for their first offence and $150 for all additional offences.
Kennington questioned whether travellers would actually pay those fines.
“ICBC is not going to collect it on our behalf. At what point is it just too much and people don’t pay it and leave? I think $150 is pretty extreme. A lot of these parking tickets are going to be because people make a mistake rather than flaunting it,” he said.
Lawrence responded that the idea is to get compliance rather than be overly punitive.
“We’re a resort municipality. We don’t want to be unfriendly. We don’t want a negative visitor experience because they got a parking fine because they forgot or they tried to sneak it and not pay because they want to camp overnight or something like that,” he said. “If you put your rates at the appropriate level, it increases your compliance without the need for enforcement…There is a balance.”
He added though that the fines could compound quickly if someone parks without paying and heads out on a multi-day fishing or kayaking trip.
Safeguarding finances
To implement the program, Ucluelet will enter a three-year revenue sharing agreement with HotSpot Parking Inc. to provide supplies, materials, digital applications, training and communications.
Lawrence explained the agreement would protect the community from any potential financial losses if the fees generate less revenue than expected.
“That means there would never be a situation that our costs for implementation would outweigh what we’re bringing in in revenue. That protects the community to ensure that it is profitable to a certain degree,” he said.
Tofino drew groans from residents last year when it was discovered the town’s downtown pay parking program had actually lost money due to a contract with Robbins Parking costing roughly $30,000 more than the revenue it brought in.
Ucluelet will avoid that situation by agreeing to give HotSpot 15 per cent of any revenue collected with no base rate sum, while Tofino gives Robbins 5.5 per cent of the revenue on top of its $448,900 contract to implement the program.
Kennington said he liked the revenue sharing idea, but hoped it didn’t motivate HotSpot to chase profits.
“I think that was the right program to pick. It really seems to check all the boxes and takes a lot of the risk away. My only concern with that is that it’s commission based and I don’t want them to go out there on a revenue generating mission rather than managing our parking appropriately,” he said.
Enforcement
Unlike Tofino’s contract with Robbins, Ucluelet’s agreement with HotSpot will not include enforcement, leaving the town’s one bylaw officer to monitor cars.
Lawrence explained enforcement won’t be rushed.
“It was pretty much unanimous across all the providers saying ‘Don’t rush it. Do enforcement, but take it easy especially in the first couple of years. There’s no rush to do this,” he said. “That being said, we have one bylaw enforcement officer that works Monday to Friday, has holidays, sick leave and everything like that, so we have limited enforcement capability within the municipality.”
He recommended council purchase a licence plate reader that can be mounted onto a vehicle to make bylaw’s job easier and more efficient and the machine comes with a software system that will handle ticketing.
“It will process it, it will print a ticket, it will give a warning ticket if we so choose. The provider, HotSpot, will do an evaluation of the ticket, so if there’s a dispute they will resolve that based on direction from the municipality,” Lawrence said.
“That could be a really good investment right off the bat because based on our community, it’s a wide area to patrol…It would make the whole system more effective and efficient on the staffing level. We wouldn’t necessarily have to hire a new bylaw officer right away.”
The licence plate reader will run $33,900 in startup costs and an additional $25,800 annually.
Increased bylaw enforcement
With parking fees now added under the bylaw umbrella, council agreed to look into hiring an additional enforcement officer in 2025.
We need to do a little bit more enforcement action on items like noise violations and beach fires and items that we aren’t able to address because we only have 8 hours a day, 5 days a week,” Lawrence explained, adding the new officer could also help crack down on illegal campers and campfires. “Another bylaw officer would allow us to do 7-day a week coverage and in a resort municipality that’s pretty beneficial.”
He added the district has struggled to find summer students willing to take on a bylaw ambassador role and that a full-time position would likely generate higher interest.
“We have within the budget previously a six month seasonal bylaw officer that we’ve been unsuccessful in recruiting. They’re just too hard to come by,” he said, adding the town’s housing crunch is a key impediment. “All of that effort just goes to the wayside because we can’t get any applications. Even if they’re interested, they back out in the end.”
Coun. Kennington said he had not expected the community to clamour so loudly for increased bylaw enforcement.
“The community has vocalized the desire for another bylaw person, which is a surprise to me but I have heard it constantly,” he said.
Lawrence reiterated though that the parking fees will begin with slow enforcement with education being the key goal at the start.
“Our intent is to just provide warnings and information because we anticipate that right off the bat there’s going to be a whole bunch of people that either have not gotten around to, have not heard about it in the various ways that we’ll get the information out there,” he said.
No kiosks, just phones
Council also unanimously agreed with their staff’s recommendation to not include any pay kiosks and instead rely on QR codes and an app accessible via smartphone.
Lawrence explained that he and his staff had reached out to other communities that charge for parking, like Jasper and Norfolk, and the feedback received suggested kiosks are unnecessary and expensive.
“Everything is telling us, if you don’t need to use kiosks, don’t. They’re costly. They’re time consuming. They create 95 per cent of your complaints because either they don’t work, there’s errors that come with them, they run out of paper or there’s a myriad of other problems,” he said. “They do run into a few people periodically that don’t actually have a phone on them, but it is rare and far and few between.”
Lawrence’s report laid out that the cost of purchasing a kiosk would be around $9,500 and renting one would cost about $600 a month.
Council unanimously agreed to avoid those costs and go without a kiosk.
