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Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

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Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#251

Post by shiroiuma »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #106
apendleton wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just restrict who can park on the street. Then if people want to park a car, they'll need a residence with a space, and if there's demand for residences with parking spaces, developers will build them, minimums or not. The issue with minimums is that they require building spaces above and beyond demand, but markets should do just fine at making sure demand is met, as long as there are barriers to externalizing it.

In Japan you have to vouch that you have a parking space for your car. I think a similar rule would work for the states. However, it will cause a huge tension between the parking spot haves and parking spot have nots, without adequate equality will be seen (rightfully so) as a move to limit cars among those who can't afford parking spots for them. For better or worse, the USA has basically made a contract with its pe…

You don't have to "vouch" that you have a parking space, you have to prove it. The police will actually come to your home and measure your parking space to make sure it's big enough for the model of car you want to buy.

I can't imagine Americans submitting to a law like this.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#253

Post by aetherspawn »

jiggliemon wrote: post #130

I live on the border of an urban forest. I’ve come to realize that urban forests double as homeless camps. My homeless camp has is rife with crime, drug over doses, violence and fire. Last month I’ve had a leaf blower stolen, my car window broken, and an explosion due to them throwing a propane tank into a camp fire. Since they’re tucked into a forest - the city won’t take any action. The city does take action on hom…

Yes agree, they recently opened up a small forest near me and yes, it’s just full of homeless people and their piles of trash and we can’t walk through it feeling safe anymore.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#254

Post by jnwatson »

coldpie wrote: post #47
wtp1saac wrote: post #4

Strong Towns has called a good amount of attention to the mandatory parking requirements in many cities (and shockingly, many downtowns). Thankfully, it seems a fair number of cities are removing such restrictions, but hopefully it becomes more widespread. In general I hope the US can urbanize, the older I get the more I realize it’s not really enjoyable living in this country. I don’t think I want hyper dense, but h…

> having more places to walk, bike, and explore that aren’t just cookie-cutter boilerplate-esque suburbs and freeways would be really nice. We're at a critical juncture here in the Twin Cities. The state DOT needs to re-build the interstate that cuts right through the entire metro area (I-94) for the first time since it was first built 50 years ago. There is a serious proposal to remove the interstate entirely and re…

Houston is about to remove the Pierce Elevated, a section of I-45 that separates Downtown from midtown. This is a very big deal.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#255

Post by HenryBemis »

> remove the unnecessary asphalt and plant some trees. Or do something constructive with this unused, paved space — new housing, a solar energy field

It's always about the money. Who will sell the land, who will buy the land, who will build the houses, who will buy the houses (for how much), and so on.

If I am a developer I don't care to make a $100k house. I prefer that there is 'some' scarcity in the market so I can be selling $300k houses instead. This 'motivational' speech is socialist-like (I like socialism but the Scandinavian one - aka capitalism with enhanced social care).

If there is money to be made, then money will be made. I am sure that these places will go down in prices enough to become 'attractive', and not a day before.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#256

Post by jjav »

jrockway wrote: post #46
Swizec wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rules in my area are two spots per bedroom - mandatory Wait am I reading this right that a 3-bedroom family home would come with space for six cars ? How many families have 6 cars that's insane O.O Sounds like a regulation someone long ago thought would for sure prevent anyone from building anything. No way they actually wanted that much residential parking ...

I don't think there's a good one-size-fits-all rule. A 3 bedroom unit could be 3 couples living together and splitting the rent, or it could be 1 family, or it could just be 1 person who wants an office and a gym. The rule should probably be "1 space for car owned", like when you go to buy a car, you have to prove that you have a place to park it.

> The rule should probably be "1 space for car owned", like when you go to buy a car, you have to prove that you have a place to park it.

That doesn't provide any guidance to the builder though, so what should they build?

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#257

Post by jjav »

apendleton wrote: post #68
jrockway wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a good one-size-fits-all rule. A 3 bedroom unit could be 3 couples living together and splitting the rent, or it could be 1 family, or it could just be 1 person who wants an office and a gym. The rule should probably be "1 space for car owned", like when you go to buy a car, you have to prove that you have a place to park it.

Just restrict who can park on the street. Then if people want to park a car, they'll need a residence with a space, and if there's demand for residences with parking spaces, developers will build them, minimums or not. The issue with minimums is that they require building spaces above and beyond demand, but markets should do just fine at making sure demand is met, as long as there are barriers to externalizing it.

> if there's demand for residences with parking spaces, developers will build them

That's somewhat optimistic. In the absence of rules, developers will maximize their profit above all else. Apartment units are far more profitable than parking, so they'll just build the maximum units with no parking.

I lived in such a neighborhood once. Result is 50 unit buildings with 4 parking spots. And the result of that? People driving around the blocks for hours looking for parking, fights breaking out over parking, cars constantly vandalized for taking over "their" spot. It was not fun.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#258

Post by jjav »

bsder wrote: post #193
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My jaw hit the floor when I learned that some cities actually apply parking minimums to redevelopment of downtown properties and not just stuff like new surburban strip malls, to the point that some projects have bought adjacent buildings and demolished them in favor of parking lots. Maybe it's true that the r/fuckcars crowd likes to throw the term "carbrain" around a little too freely, but this kind of ass-backward…

It's not always ass-backward. People forget that one of the reasons why the malls became so popular and helped collapse the old downtowns was, you guessed it, lack of free parking . With malls, you could come into a boundary and spend a significant amount of time in a walkable arena with lots of different stores. You knew there would always be parking except possibly at Christmas. Downtown? Not so much. And you proba…

> People forget that one of the reasons why the malls became so popular and helped collapse the old downtowns was, you guessed it, lack of free parking.

Yes, I witnessed this first-hand in the neighborhood where I went to school.

Very vibrant walkable downtown full of shops and restaurants but also tons of street parking. Then one year government wanted more money so they put up parking meters and pushed up the rates to a point most people couldn't afford it (it was a low income area).

Now ~20 years later? The whole downtown is boarded up abandoned shops, just a couple liquor stores remain open. Very sad. All the shops that could move, moved to the malls.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#259

Post by jjav »

apendleton wrote: post #69
travoc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parking minimums are required by cities because underparked development projects dump their parking problems on the surrounding neighborhoods. These types of externalities shouldn't just be hand-waved away in the name of "urbanization." The lack of parking creates real problems for residents, police and businesses in growing cities every day.

This is solvable with parking permit programs. Make street parking in those surrounding neighborhoods resident-only. And then people considering living in the "underparked" neighborhood who need parking will have no alternative but to select units that include parking, or live in another neighborhood (and if enough people opt not to live there, developers will include more parking to satisfy demand). This is a proble…

> (and if enough people opt not to live there, developers will include more parking to satisfy demand)

Factories that produce widgets can pretty quickly adjust the specs to changing demand. Houses don't work on that schedule.

If enough people want to buy a house but they need parking but those units don't exist, there is no way for developers to just change what's there to satisfy demand. That'll be a multi-decade effort.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#260

Post by jjav »

nradov wrote: post #82
apendleton wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is solvable with parking permit programs. Make street parking in those surrounding neighborhoods resident-only. And then people considering living in the "underparked" neighborhood who need parking will have no alternative but to select units that include parking, or live in another neighborhood (and if enough people opt not to live there, developers will include more parking to satisfy demand). This is a proble…

Where do guests park when they come to visit?

> Where do guests park when they come to visit?

This is indeed one of the biggest problems with such parking permit scheme.

What happens is the resident needs to move their car to the street (possibly driving around for a long while to find a spot) so the guest can park on their driveway. It's a pain for everyone involved. And you better never have a party where more than a couple people visit at once.

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