The City of Abbotsford has completed a draft strategy that has five proposals for dealing with overnight commercial truck parking.
A background research report was presented Tuesday to city council, indicating that as the number of trucks on the roads has increased in recent years, the amount of land on which to park them has diminished.
“ … the parking of commercial trucks continues to be a complex issue within the city due to a couple of key factors,” the report states.
“The first is the scarcity and rising cost of industrial land, and the second factor is the growth in the trucking industry.”
There are currently seven authorized areas in Abbotsford where truckers can rent spaces for parking.
As well, the ministry of transportation operates a short-term parking area – 24 hours for no cost – at the Whatcom Road interchange off Highway 1.
The report says the number of unauthorized trucks parking in the community has “grown significantly” in the last 12 years since the creation of the city’s initial Commercial Truck Parking Strategy.
In 2010, ICBC reported there were approximately 4,250 insured commercial vehicles in Abbotsford. By 2022, that number had grown to just under 7,000, according to the research report.
The report states that not only is there an “acute shortage” of industrial land available in the Lower Mainland, but the cost of renting that land is the highest in Canada.
The city applied in 2017 to have land removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) – which forms 72 per cent of Abbotsford’s total land area – to create two new industrial districts for a total of 288 hectares.
One area was on the north side of Highway 1, bordering Aldergrove. The other was immediately north of Abbotsford International Airport.
But the city’s application was rejected by the Agricultural Land Commission, which said the areas can support agriculture and need to be protected for that purpose.
The draft of the new Commercial Truck Parking Strategy offers five possible solutions:
• reducing the amount of employee or customer vehicle parking required in industrial zones and introducing more commercial truck spaces;
• advocating with the province to include overnight commercial truck parking in provincial and regional transportation plans, specifically along the Highway 1 widening project through the Fraser Valley;
• redesignating privately owned land outside of the ALR along the Fraser Highway corridor;
• allowing “big box” property owners with regional commercial land-use designations to permit overnight commercial truck parking, which would require an amendment to the city’s zoning bylaw; and
• using specific industrial streets for overnight parking.
The draft is the second of three stages, and was compiled following stakeholder workshops, an online open house, two in-person open houses, and an online survey.
The draft strategy was approved at the council meeting on Tuesday. It now proceeds to the next stage – gathering further public and industry feedback – before the final version is presented to council for consideration.
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