Ottawa is preparing for an influx of commuters, with the city anticipating tens of thousands of additional trips downtown each week. In response, the City of Ottawa is moving forward with a zoning amendment allowing downtown churches, mosques, and places of worship—along with several municipal facilities—to temporarily lease out their underutilized parking spots to weekday commuters.

It is a clever, common-sense move for the short term. Places of worship often maintain large surface lots that sit largely empty Monday through Friday, and leasing these spaces provides non-profits with much-needed revenue while easing immediate street-level gridlock.

However, this temporary fix highlights a much larger, structural issue in Ottawa's core: we are treating parking like a short-term inconvenience rather than a long-term infrastructure asset.

Connecting the Dots: The Underground Parking Opportunity

In a recent discussion on Ottawa's downtown condo market, we explored the idea of centralized, multi-building underground parking garages to solve the car-storage dilemma without eating up valuable surface land.

The city's move to partner with places of worship opens the door to an even more ambitious, permanent solution: Could allowing churches to redevelop their lots with underground parking garages solve multiple urban crises at once?

Instead of just renting out asphalt surface spots, the city could incentivize faith-based institutions and developers to co-develop these sites through public-private partnerships:

• Dual-Purpose Infrastructure: A modern underground parking facility could provide dedicated spots for weekend congregants, long-term leased stalls for neighboring condo residents, and weekday commuter parking for transit riders.
• Surface Land Optimization: Paving over prime urban land for flat asphalt lots is an inefficient use of space. Moving parking underground frees up the surface level for what Ottawa desperately needs: affordable housing, community gardens, expanded daycare facilities, or community centers.
• Financial Sustainability for Non-Profits: Leasing underground commercial parking creates a permanent, non-taxpayer-funded revenue stream that allows historic places of worship to maintain heritage buildings and fund local charitable work for decades.

The Bigger Planning Picture

Letting churches rent surface spots until spring is a welcome temporary band-aid. But as Ottawa pushes for higher urban density and eliminates minimum parking mandates for new condo towers, the demand for secure vehicle storage isn't disappearing—it is just being pushed onto surrounding neighborhoods.

If the city wants to protect vibrant streetscapes while accommodating real-world transportation needs, thinking below the surface is the answer. Enabling community hubs and places of worship to build shared, subterranean parking facilities isn't just a win for commuters—it is a blueprint for smarter city building.