The fee that Niagara-on-the-Lake property owners pay when they can’t meet required parking rules on their land is going up next year.
Council has set the 2026 cash-in-lieu of parking rate at $75,716 per space, a 4.2 per cent increase tied to national construction cost trends.
The new rate takes effect Jan. 1, the day the fee is updated annually under the town’s bylaw.
Cash-in-lieu is used when a property owner is required to provide a certain number of parking spaces under zoning rules but can’t. Instead of supplying the spaces, the owner can ask council for permission to pay the fee, which the town places in a reserve for future parking projects.
A typical example of this could be a restaurant wanting to add more indoor seating, or a hotel looking to build a few additional guest rooms. Both uses trigger higher parking requirements under the zoning bylaw.
If the property can’t physically fit the extra parking spaces on-site, the owner can apply to pay the cash-in-lieu fee instead.
A more unique case is the Irish Harp Pub on King Street’s current application to the town.
The pub has three parking spaces behind the building, but that area has functioned as a temporary patio since 2020, when the town created a COVID-19 patio program allowing restaurants to use space normally reserved for parking.
With the temporary program ending in December, the owner wants to keep the patio permanently, removing those required spaces and creating a need for three more under the town’s parking rules.
To address that, the owner has applied to pay cash-in-lieu for six spaces. Council has referred the matter to February for further consideration.
