The Okotoks library recently saw a change to its parking arrangements.

A seniors’ parking stall can now be seen in front of the building.

While things like accessible parking, family parking, and charging stations are required under building code and LEED certification, senior parking stalls aren’t.

However, after a social media post from a local senior lamenting the lack of senior parking saw quite a bit of attention online, the issue was noted by the town, and the sign was installed pretty quickly.

Community growth, investment, and sustainability director Jeff Greene says with new facilities like the library, this kind of thing can sometimes go overlooked at first, but can later be added based on necessity.

“Other types of parking that are suggested, recommended, there’s no official process for that, it’s more a case of monitoring the user experience and what we hear from people and seeing if we can actually make adjustments. For example, in addition to that seniors stall, you’ll notice in front of Bow Valley College in the old library we also added a sign saying ‘no parking on school days between certain hours’ because there’s bus loading and unloading that has to take place, so that was another adjustment we made.”

He continues, “We make adjustments as we learn from users and their experience, we make adjustments as we’re able to within the parameters we have from a bylaw and a code perspective, so we’ll continue to make adjustments as we learn.”

More senior parking stalls will also be added in the new parking lot, which will add 40 spaces overall and is expected to start construction later this year.