If you have ever squeezed two cars onto a St. Thomas driveway, or driven down a street lined with cars parked half on the lawn, you have run into a rule that has not changed since 1988. Now a group of local homebuilders wants the city to rewrite it, and city staff agree it is worth a look.
At its September 14th meeting, St. Thomas council received a staff report on residential driveway widths and directed staff to start drafting possible changes to the rule, a decision the city confirmed in its own council highlights the next day. No rule has changed yet. Staff will prepare draft options and bring them back for public consultation before anything is decided.
Discussion at the meeting was mixed. One councillor called the widths builders want “way beyond what is reasonable.” Another said wider driveways just “transferred” the parking problem rather than solving it, and separately raised stormwater, since less front-yard grass means less rain soaked up. A third called the current rule “an arbitrary number” and said it is “time we reviewed it.” Speakers are not named here, since the minutes that would confirm who said what have not been posted.
The 1988 rule
Under Zoning By-law 50-88, a residential driveway in St. Thomas must be between 3 and 6 metres wide. On top of that, a driveway and any other parking space in your front yard together cannot cover more than half of the front yard.
Those numbers have not moved in nearly 40 years. Senior planner Kevin McClure’s report to council says the rule was written for a different kind of development, and today’s household needs and housing forms are worth a fresh look.
What builders are asking for
The same group of local builders sent the city two formal proposals this summer. Doug Tarry Homes, Hayhoe Homes and Collier Homes, the three builders who build semi-detached and townhouse projects, asked for wider driveways on those built forms. A wider group, those three plus MP Custom Homes, DHP Homes, John Roberts Custom Homes, Donwest Construction and Woodfield Design and Build, asked for wider single-family driveways too.
For semi-detached houses and townhouses, the builders want driveways up to 17 feet (about 5.2 metres) wide, enough to park two cars side by side. On a typical townhouse lot, only 21 to 25 feet wide, they say today’s 50 percent limit makes that impossible. They point to at least 200 semi-detached and townhouse units built in the Harvest Run and Orchard Park Meadows subdivisions over the past five years as proof. From 2010 to 2019 the city routinely granted individual builders one-off exceptions for wider driveways; since 2020, staff have stopped supporting them. Photos in the submission, taken the same night in June, compare the result: a street built under one of those older exceptions, with no cars parked on the road, next to a street built since 2020 under the standard rule, with several cars parked illegally along the curb.
For single-family homes with two-car garages, the builders want driveways up to 8 metres (about 26 feet) wide, instead of the current 6-metre (20-foot) cap, though only wide enough to match the garage doors it serves, not a blanket 8 metres everywhere. For narrower lots, 45 feet or less, they are also asking the city to trim the required front-yard green space from 50 percent to 45 percent, to make room for a wider driveway.
The builders argue that without wider driveways, residents end up parking on the street, on the boulevard between the sidewalk and the curb, or straight across their own lawn, especially once winter parking bans push cars off the street entirely.
What other towns do
City staff looked at how driveway widths are regulated in 27 other Ontario municipalities and found no single standard approach. In their own submission, the builders point to nearby examples: Tillsonburg already allows 17-foot driveways for all its townhouse and semi-detached homes. Aylmer permits driveways up to 6 metres for semi-detached and townhouse units. Central Elgin recently loosened its townhouse driveway rule to allow 60 percent of the front yard, up from 50. And in Thames Centre, near Dorchester, council granted a one-off exception this past May allowing 17-foot driveways at a 29-unit townhouse project built by one of the same builders behind this submission.
What happens next
Staff are not recommending any specific new numbers yet. Instead, the report asks council to let staff prepare draft amendments to the zoning by-law, and possibly the Official Plan, so the options can be tested and brought to a public consultation with residents, the development industry and city technical staff.
That review will look at more than just the numbers builders want. The report flags a long list of knock-on effects to weigh, including sidewalk and pedestrian safety, on-street parking, stormwater runoff from added pavement, and room for boulevard trees, before any new standard is set.
The report does not set a date for the public consultation.
Sources: Report PD-48-26, Residential Driveway Width Review and Zoning By-Law Regulations (City of St. Thomas, Planning & Building Services, September 14, 2026 council meeting); Proposed Adjustments to St. Thomas Semi-Detached and Townhouse Driveway Zoning Regulations (homebuilder submission, July 15, 2026); Proposed Adjustments to Single Family Driveway Zoning Regulations (homebuilder submission, July 23, 2026); Keeping Track: City of St. Thomas Council Highlights, September 15, 2026, Issue 50 (City of St. Thomas)
By Anthony Zruna · About the LocVox Newsroom
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