Before: If you build a building of this size, you MUST also build at least X parking spaces. Now: If you build a building of this size, you MAY build as many parking spaces as you think you need. Seems like a strict improvement to me.
When it comes to property development, anything that you leave to optionality in code enforcement ends up being a thing that never happens ever. For something to be available it has to be required by building codes.
Before: If you build a building of this size, you MUST also build at least X parking spaces. Now: If you build a building of this size, you MAY build as many parking spaces as you think you need. Seems like a strict improvement to me.
When it comes to property development, anything that you leave to optionality in code enforcement ends up being a thing that never happens ever. For something to be available it has to be required by building codes.
> anything that you leave to optionality in code enforcement ends up being a thing that never happens ever
No code requires marble countertops. Yet they get installed because buyers want them.
Cities like Austin have regulated themselves into a housing-cost crisis. It’s almost a miracle that rational economic policy is being given space by voters.
Raising the price would just extract more value for the owners from a very limited resource. But the resource stays just as limited. If you have 200 cars and 50 parking spaces there's no price point at which the 200 cars can park simultaneously. The overflow ends up clogging the surrounding neighborhoods, on top of the outcome described by OP. Edit. @pc86, both points you make are valid but neither addresses or fixes…
This is the approach Singapore (and in some ways, Hong Kong) takes; you can own a car, but you must purchase a 10-year use permit, which costs in some cases much more than a car itself (something like $80,000 over 10 years). So if you're buying a Toyota Corolla ($20K car), you'd still need a $80K operating permit to use it. That's why 90%+ of the people in Singapore use public transportation or carpool. Granted, you…
Sure but public infrastructure doesn't magically appear overnight. It takes years, decades even, and costs a ton of money. I think the solutions may come laterally from developments in autonomous construction robots. They're being developed in Japan due to negative population growth reducing the available construction workforce.
Before: If you build a building of this size, you MUST also build at least X parking spaces. Now: If you build a building of this size, you MAY build as many parking spaces as you think you need. Seems like a strict improvement to me.
It’s not. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that did this and it was a nightmare. All street parking filling up by 4pm. Half hour walks to your car. Neighbors keying each others cars for taking up a space for too long. Guests basically just being SOL - you’d literally be unable to have guests over because if you left to pick them up there’d be no spot when you got back, and if they drove themselves they’d never find a spot…
> if they drove themselves they’d never find a spot
Rideshare. Also, this screams market opportunity for paid parking. (Unless, of course, the problem isn’t as consistently dramatic.)
Before: If you build a building of this size, you MUST also build at least X parking spaces. Now: If you build a building of this size, you MAY build as many parking spaces as you think you need. Seems like a strict improvement to me.
When it comes to property development, anything that you leave to optionality in code enforcement ends up being a thing that never happens ever. For something to be available it has to be required by building codes.
Its expensive to build parking. Loads of shopping centers end up having to build seas of parking spaces due to these parking minimums given their square footage even though the actual car traffic wouldn't come close. I imagine a lot of those stores would have preferred paying for far less real estate and paving.
It’s not. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that did this and it was a nightmare. All street parking filling up by 4pm. Half hour walks to your car. Neighbors keying each others cars for taking up a space for too long. Guests basically just being SOL - you’d literally be unable to have guests over because if you left to pick them up there’d be no spot when you got back, and if they drove themselves they’d never find a spot…
> Neighbors keying each others cars for taking up a space for too long. People need to stop being shitty to each other. > Without readily available and reliable public transportation this is just lining developers pockets (because fewer parking spaces needed means more units they can build). I don't think this is fair. Fewer parking spaces might mean higher profits for developers on a per-unit basis, but I'd rather t…
Further, we should move to a model where the highways are paid entirely by usage fees (gas tax, tolls, etc) instead of subsidized. They're for the benefit of private operators, so the private operators should pay for them. The investments should be in public transit instead.
I think you're assuming that mass transit is the only lever to improve traffic. Eliminating parking minimums allows businesses to pop up nearer to where people live, where they're accessible by foot or micromobility. If anything, plentiful parking in and of itself causes traffic to be shitty because driving becomes the only safe/comfortable way to get around; housing and businesses come to have huge paved deserts bet…
> Eliminating parking minimums allows businesses to pop up nearer to where people live, where they're accessible by foot or micromobility. This is just fantasyland thinking as it applies to Austin TX. These regulations largely impact downtown, which is already dense and already has services downtown.
> Raising the price would just extract more value for the owners from a very limited resource. Yes. If you own a limited resource it's your right to make money from that. I know we like to pretend people making money from things they own is somehow evil but it's how all of civilization has been built and is an objectively good thing. > If you have 200 cars and 50 parking spaces there's no price point at which the 200…
> No, but is a point where 50 can park simultaneously and nobody who wants to park there and can afford to is denied that ability. That sucks for the people who are denied the ability to park there because they can't afford it though. Telling people that they need to walk miles to get to a doctor or a grocery store and that only the wealthy deserve to have access to 90% of the city doesn't seem like a good idea to me…
> only the wealthy deserve to have access to 90% of the city
There parking minimums drive up housing costs. They’re why that person has to drive longer to get to that place. Perhaps why they need to make a car payment at all.
It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
Ditch off street parking and buildings will become much more dense, which in turn will make them more valuable (manhattan land is more valuable than suburbia), smaller (because people can't afford much space when land is expensive), which increases density further. End result: Nobody has space for a car, lots of demand for public transit, makes it worth building public transit. Unfortunately, there probably will be t…
The problem is that a functional public transit system requires functional roadway design to begin with. Austin is a sprawling mess with a highway system of concentric rings cut through with crossing highways. It's designed for lots of cars funneling people to and from sleepy bedroom communities & downtown. It's not designed for moving masses of people point to point where they need to go.
With the roads Austin has, public transit is expensive to maintain and slow. Expanding the system won't change that, but only exacerbate the current problems.