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U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

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Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#151

Post by tuna74 »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #13
coldpie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The easy solution to this is to make (street) parking more expensive.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#152

Post by boring-alterego »

busterarm wrote: post #119
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Marble countertops aren't competing for space that you could otherwise use to build more apartments to sell/rent. Parking is. Until parking spaces cost more than apartments do, developers are going to favor building apartments over parking one hundreds times out of one hundred.

A better example would be where a "development" community's rain water goes. The areas booming right now in the south east usa will build the next development up 4 feet above the previous community and get approved through the county council permit process. Then the first big rain storm or hurricane comes by and the formerly dry community is now flooded out for the new community that got built, which also floods because drainage wasn't factored in.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#153

Post by tstrimple »

1-6 wrote: post #21

I thought a generation of remote work would change attitudes about cities. Why are we still trying to cram into small spaces?

Because sprawl is economically unsustainable and dense urban tax bases subsidize practically everything else.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#154

Post by kjkjadksj »

pramsey wrote: post #117
elektor wrote: post #2

There is a thorough book on this topic, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. Highly recommend it if you're interested in the causes of so much of our dysfunction in housing costs. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634461/paved-paradi...

Yep, good read and wonderful on the vicious cycle that led to the downtowns of most US cities looking like WWII bombed out zones by 1975.

Honestly that would be fixed with expanded immigration. Look at places where the limited immigrants we have had in recent years primarily ended up and have changed the demography, like LA county or Miami-Dade county, and they don’t look like those midwestern or great plains cities. In fact there are almost no vacant parcels anywhere today, with majority latino populations now reflecting the recent waves of immigration.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#155

Post by detourdog »

dave78 wrote: post #127
vel0city wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps the problem isn't the fact that parking requirements exist but rather that they require way too many parking spots. Most shopping center lots in my area are never close to full, even on the busiest Christmas shopping days.

I here this a lot but in the North East at least those extra spots can be used during the winter for snow management.

Snow management can be done in other ways but that is a cost analysis exercise.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#156

Post by JumpCrisscross »

autoexec wrote: post #134
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not true, at least not for most people anyway. People need cars to get to where they need to go. When the developer of an apartment complex has to provide parking for its residents everyone has a place to put the cars they need. When those developers don't have to provide parking space anymore, people will still need cars, but will now have no place to put them at night. This will drive up the price of apartment comp…

> This will drive up the price of apartment complexes that provide parking, pricing many people out, while doing nothing to eliminate the need for their cars

There is zero evidence for this. There is evidence for parking minimums raising housing prices.

I’m curious about the overlap between off-street parking minimum requirement advocates and anti-development NIMBYs who don’t believe in supply and demand.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#157

Post by hughesjj »

autoexec wrote: post #85
ripply wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is step 1 of reversing car centricity in these areas. Believe it or not some people in Europe in their 30s don’t even know how to drive because it’s just not needed. When you require parking spots for housing you increase the distance between everything. Going places requires transport because you have all these god forsaken parking lots you have to traverse to get to your destination.

Step one should be creating adequate public transportation so that the people with the fewest options are still able to get to work, doctors, and grocery stores even after existing parking spaces go away and no new ones are built. Parking lots aren't what's keeping people in subdivisions from being miles away from those places. Parking spots aren't what's keeping people in cities from being able to walk to where they…

Why not replace some on street parking with a dedicated bus lane and stops for such?

Two birds, one stone

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#158

Post by c0nfused »

tmaly wrote: post #93

Cities obviously cannot or do not build housing. Given that, beyond say SimCity, has anyone developed simulations of how these new regulations / incentives would actually affect housing?

The city I live in added "transit oriented development" a few years back along with a bus rapid transit along the same area.

The results appear to be a full bus, the whole sale replacement of one and 2 story buildings along the bus line and a general consensus in the city that it worked pretty well.

We just approved ending parking minimums and by right auxiliary housing units, read anyone can put in an apartment over their garage, this summer so the jury is out on it as yet city wide.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#159

Post by dylan604 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #133
dylan604 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been without a car for 4 years now, and it is becoming a burden. For the first 2 years it wasn't so bad because of lock down. Now, even with my e-bike (which I love and would continue to use if I had a car) there are certain things I just cannot do. Inclimate weather is a big one, and in my location, June-September is inclimate weather of 100°+ weather. Carrying things home from the hardware store is not conduci…

> I've been without a car for 4 years now, and it is becoming a burden. For the first 2 years it wasn't so bad because of lock down. Now, even with my e-bike (which I love and would continue to use if I had a car) there are certain things I just cannot do. Inclimate weather is a big one, and in my location, June-September is inclimate weather of 100°+ weather. Carrying things home from the hardware store is not condu…

> When you're living in a place that's designed with cars in mind,

Being born in a place is a lottery with random chance deciding the rules for you. Sure, as an adult, you can potentially choose to leave for the less green pasture and live in an urban environment of city designed for other means of transpo if you're one that doesn't mind moving away from their entire familial support structure. Not say it can't be done, but people just assume these decisions are something people are willing to make just because they did. It's nonsensical.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#160

Post by zdragnar »

kilotaras wrote: post #86
autoexec wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because before developers were required to ensure that when they built something adding parking spaces to handle the demand they were introducing to an area was their responsibility. Now developers can (and will) push that externality onto the public at zero cost to them. The city has a very limited amount of parking spaces it can provide at any cost which means that removing that requirement will suddenly make parki…

But that's not what artificially inducing means. London for example have buildings which are prohibited of having parking (or getting street permit). Providing an option not pay for parking space when buying an apartment is not that.

The externality is already accounted for there.
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