4 ms·

Agreed. Glad that Scott Weiner got elected to state senate, as he is a force for building dense housing around transit stations - exactly the combination we nee

by osdiab 10y ago

Agreed. Glad that Scott Weiner got elected to state senate, as he is a force for building dense housing around transit stations - exactly the combination we need. Now if only Bay Area politics around housing development didn't move at a snails pace... As for that statistic about the use of parking lots, I think that also included road space and other forms of car storage; I do think parking lots are good candidates for construction, as doing so doesn't displace anyone, and I would also like to narrow lots of streets in San Francisco (SOMA is basically a giant freeway grid), but I also agree that densification of neighborhoods is potentially more impactful.

khrbrt 10y ago
>I do think parking lots are good candidates for construction, as doing so doesn't displace anyone I have strong anecdotal evidence against that. In Richmond, VA, nearly the entire neighborhood of Monroe Ward was leveled to provide parking for skyscrapers downtown.
- alexhutcheson 10y ago
  I think he's saying the opposite - it makes sense to build on sites that are currently parking lots.
douche 10y ago
The other hand is what happens when parking lots get developed... Portsmouth, NH has made their downtown completely unvisitable by allowing three or four lots on the edge of the old downtown to be developed into mostly unoccupied luxury condos and hotels. The one municipal parking garage is constantly filled, and on-street parking has gotten cutthroat.
- dashundchen 10y ago
  Portsmouth is a community of 20ķ and from a cursory look on Google maps relatively small area wise. . If parking downtown is that in demand, has the city investigated things such a bus circulator, demand-based pricing to fund parking improvements, improving bike amenities and connections or negotiating public parking agreements with private lot owners? There's a lot of potential solutions here, but paving over business districts doesn't make sense.
- CalRobert 10y ago
  It sounds like there's a lot of demand for parking and some land mistakenly allocated to condos and hotels, as evidenced by the low occupancy you cite! This could be a great opportunity for the enterprising business to put parking in place of that housing and charge market rate for it!
  - CalRobert 10y ago
    Or, if people won't pay market rate for land to store their car, maybe there actually isn't a shortage, and that land is already being put to better use by people who _are_ willing to pay.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      This, of course, assumes that people are perfectly rational actors when it comes to things like paying for parking. I would submit that years of free or extremely cheap parking have made us not.

by osdiab 10y ago

khrbrt 10y ago

>I do think parking lots are good candidates for construction, as doing so doesn't displace anyone I have strong anecdotal evidence against that. In Richmond, VA, nearly the entire neighborhood of Monroe Ward was leveled to provide parking for skyscrapers downtown.

alexhutcheson 10y ago
I think he's saying the opposite - it makes sense to build on sites that are currently parking lots.

douche 10y ago

The other hand is what happens when parking lots get developed... Portsmouth, NH has made their downtown completely unvisitable by allowing three or four lots on the edge of the old downtown to be developed into mostly unoccupied luxury condos and hotels. The one municipal parking garage is constantly filled, and on-street parking has gotten cutthroat.

dashundchen 10y ago
Portsmouth is a community of 20ķ and from a cursory look on Google maps relatively small area wise. . If parking downtown is that in demand, has the city investigated things such a bus circulator, demand-based pricing to fund parking improvements, improving bike amenities and connections or negotiating public parking agreements with private lot owners? There's a lot of potential solutions here, but paving over business districts doesn't make sense.
CalRobert 10y ago
It sounds like there's a lot of demand for parking and some land mistakenly allocated to condos and hotels, as evidenced by the low occupancy you cite! This could be a great opportunity for the enterprising business to put parking in place of that housing and charge market rate for it!
- CalRobert 10y ago
  Or, if people won't pay market rate for land to store their car, maybe there actually isn't a shortage, and that land is already being put to better use by people who _are_ willing to pay.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    This, of course, assumes that people are perfectly rational actors when it comes to things like paying for parking. I would submit that years of free or extremely cheap parking have made us not.