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I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility. People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accor

I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility. People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accordingly.

dpark 5y ago
I know, right? They should just plan to park 4 blocks away every day, because that’s what they will do no matter where they rent, because all of the buildings are built this way. It’s the developer’s responsibility for the same reason anything else is: because the law says so (or should). If developers could get away with it, they wouldn’t put in fire alarms or sprinklers and they’d skip out on insulation, and they would probably cut all sorts of corners on plumbing and electric. We establish codes so they can’t do that. Nor can they build unreasonably small bathrooms or excessively low ceilings in finished spaces. I think it’s reasonable that builders be required to include parking spaces, just as builders are required to have sufficient water supply and sewer capacity for their residents. It’s unfair to the residents and it’s unfair to the rest of the city that developers should be able to externalize their costs onto the public.
tzs 5y ago
An argument for making it the developer's responsibility is that buildings should last a long time, so should be designed with flexibility to deal with future neighborhood and city developments. Take the building in his example, with 42 units and only 5 parking spots. That means 37 units are only useful to people who either don't have cars or who can find their own parking such as on street or at nearby paid lots. Now imagine that other building are built nearby with similar ratios of units to lots, which might lead to a neighborhood where there is not enough street parking or nearby lots, and most units are only useful to people who have no car. If the neighborhood has good public transit that might work. If transit is not great through you could end up with a lot of units that are only useful to people who can spend most of their time within walking distance of their home. How well that works depends on what else is in the neighborhood. By building buildings with only parking for a fraction of the units, you are making a building that only works in some plausible evolutions of that neighborhood. If on the other hand you make it a requirement that the developer provide parking for all or most units, so they then include a parking level under the units you end up with a building that works in a much larger range of possible futures for development in the neighborhood and for changes in public transit. If at the time you build the building a mix of 37 units without parking and 5 with parking would be fine for that neighborhood, build in the parking level but partition it into 5 parking spaces and and 42 storage. The storage units will make the units more attractive, and if future needs change so that what you need there is a building with more parking you can change the partitioning of the parking level. You can even configure it back and forth as the neighborhood and city evolve over the lifetime of the building.
jjav 5y ago
> I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility. Because otherwise they're just raking in the profits (from many additional units) and externalizing all the negatives. > People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accordingly. In a perfect world with perfectly rational people, you're right. But the leasing office will claim "you can always find a spot nearby" and people tend to be optimistic about having it work out even if rationally it won't.

I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility. People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accordingly.

dpark 5y ago

I know, right? They should just plan to park 4 blocks away every day, because that’s what they will do no matter where they rent, because all of the buildings are built this way. It’s the developer’s responsibility for the same reason anything else is: because the law says so (or should). If developers could get away with it, they wouldn’t put in fire alarms or sprinklers and they’d skip out on insulation, and they would probably cut all sorts of corners on plumbing and electric. We establish codes so they can’t do that. Nor can they build unreasonably small bathrooms or excessively low ceilings in finished spaces. I think it’s reasonable that builders be required to include parking spaces, just as builders are required to have sufficient water supply and sewer capacity for their residents. It’s unfair to the residents and it’s unfair to the rest of the city that developers should be able to externalize their costs onto the public.

tzs 5y ago

An argument for making it the developer's responsibility is that buildings should last a long time, so should be designed with flexibility to deal with future neighborhood and city developments. Take the building in his example, with 42 units and only 5 parking spots. That means 37 units are only useful to people who either don't have cars or who can find their own parking such as on street or at nearby paid lots. Now imagine that other building are built nearby with similar ratios of units to lots, which might lead to a neighborhood where there is not enough street parking or nearby lots, and most units are only useful to people who have no car. If the neighborhood has good public transit that might work. If transit is not great through you could end up with a lot of units that are only useful to people who can spend most of their time within walking distance of their home. How well that works depends on what else is in the neighborhood. By building buildings with only parking for a fraction of the units, you are making a building that only works in some plausible evolutions of that neighborhood. If on the other hand you make it a requirement that the developer provide parking for all or most units, so they then include a parking level under the units you end up with a building that works in a much larger range of possible futures for development in the neighborhood and for changes in public transit. If at the time you build the building a mix of 37 units without parking and 5 with parking would be fine for that neighborhood, build in the parking level but partition it into 5 parking spaces and and 42 storage. The storage units will make the units more attractive, and if future needs change so that what you need there is a building with more parking you can change the partitioning of the parking level. You can even configure it back and forth as the neighborhood and city evolve over the lifetime of the building.

jjav 5y ago

> I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility. Because otherwise they're just raking in the profits (from many additional units) and externalizing all the negatives. > People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accordingly. In a perfect world with perfectly rational people, you're right. But the leasing office will claim "you can always find a spot nearby" and people tend to be optimistic about having it work out even if rationally it won't.