A plan by an apartment block owner along Chapel Drive in Steinbach to add a couple of suites was turned down by city council Tuesday evening because there is not enough parking. A variance application asked city council to allow a total 52 parking stalls whereas the city's Zoning Bylaw requires 63 parking stalls for a 42-suite building. Councillor Susan Penner moved to deny the request.

"It was actually a fairly straightforward decision. The request was to have approximately 20% less parking than the city would require. In addition, it's a very congested area already. So it just made sense to deny the request."

Councillor Michael Zwaagstra seconded the motion.

"First of all, we don't even have the applicant here to answer questions and to explain and that is always something that is obviously greatly preferred. At the end of the day, this is a very congested area already. There are a lot of cars that already park on Chapel Drive so we already have a parking issue in this area. We have an expectation, a requirement in our Zoning Bylaw, a minimum of 1.5 stalls (per suite) for parking and this does not meet that. We have that requirement for a very good reason. People who live in apartment buildings need places to park and if they don't have a place to park, they're going to park on the street and the street can't take the additional parking."

City council was unanimous in turning down the variance request.

Council was told the existing apartment block has fewer parking stalls than required under the current Zoning Bylaw because it was built some years ago when the rules were different.