In brief, here are two items of public interest that were discussed during the February 2019 City Council meeting. The full agenda can be accessed here.
Recycling Services for 2020 and Beyond
The City of Saskatoon and Loraas are entering the last year of a seven-year contract to provide city-wide curbside recycling (collections and processing) to residents. This contract ends on December 31, 2019. During 2019, an RFP and a new contract will be completed to ensure that curbside recycling service is in place for January 1, 2020.
The service level expectation within the RFP will be for year-round, bi-weekly collection, which is the current service level. Enhancements such as additional cart sizes and additional collections at Christmas, will also be considered.
Collection and processing will be combined into one RFP that will form a future service agreement. The RFP will request processing costs for different acceptable materials. This request allows the City to consider removal of items in order to maintain affordability, which would be a City Council decision. Examples of low value and high processing cost materials include: glass, black plastic, and other low-value plastics. Plastic film is not currently accepted in the program and will likely be excluded from a future program.
The RFP is planned for release by the second quarter of 2019. Materials collected through the 2017 Curbside Recycling Program resulted in emissions reductions of 31,000 tonnes CO2e.
Parking Time Restrictions in Residential Neighbourhoods
City Council instructed Administration to:
- Amend The Traffic Bylaw in order to implement a city-wide, 72-hour, on-street parking restriction from the current 36 hours, leaving the current notice period of 36 hours in place; and
- Include restrictions to the parking time limit, as part of The Traffic Bylaw public education strategy.
The City has been operating with a 36 hour time limit for folks to park their car on the street. Parking time limit restrictions help to ensure parking supply is available, parking turnover can occur, and on-street vehicle storage is deterred. No other provision
in the bylaw exists to address vehicles being stored on streets. The current parking time limit applies to all City streets, not just residential streets. Although technically under the business license and zoning bylaw, commercial and industrial businesses should have adequate on-site parking to accommodate such uses, there is a risk that vehicle storage could spill over to on-street parking, which may impact parking for customers and employees. The 36-hour time limit has historically been used to empower placement of new signage or temporary operational signage. For example, new parking signs are usually enforced a minimum of 36-hours later, and if a vehicle is still present they would have been expected to have been moved by this time.
The recommendation allows on-street parked vehicles to remain on street for a longer period of time (for most roadways), allowing 72 hours rather than just 36 hours. In terms of roadway operations, by maintaining the 36 hours notice period the City still maintains productivity, costs, and level of service for Roadways, Fleet & Support (i.e. for snow removal, street cleaning and sweeping).
A bylaw is being drafted by the City Solicitor's Office. Once drafted it will be brought to City Council for approval. At this point the new changes would come into affect.