Edmonton daycares need less parking under new rules
City council votes to cut on-site parking requirements, hoping to make drop-offs walkable and bikeable.
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Edmonton city council voted Tuesday to slash the parking requirements for neighbourhood daycares, removing a regulatory barrier that had long kept home-based child care from opening in residential areas.
Under the old rules, daycares needed two parking spaces for the first 10 children, then one space per additional 10 children. The new standard cuts that to one space per every 10 children across the board — and in areas with unrestricted street parking, the requirement drops by half again. A 40-child facility that once needed five parking spaces now needs just two.
Mayor Andrew Knack said the move prioritizes walkability. "If you've got a child-care or daycare space in your community, then you actually have the option of walking or biking to that space," he told reporters. "But for most of our city's history, we didn't allow for that."
A 2024 city traffic study found that 17 per cent of trips to and from daycares are already done by walking or cycling, and that actual parking demand runs about 20 per cent lower than what the old rules required.
The change took effect immediately. Only Coun. Michael Janz and Karen Principe voted against it. The rules do not apply to home-based child care with fewer than seven children.