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> If a builder chooses to add parking and they’re located 0.5 miles within a transit corridor, they are limited to one space for every two homes. This seems we
by amluto 3y ago
> If a builder chooses to add parking and they’re located 0.5 miles within a transit corridor, they are limited to one space for every two homes.
This seems weird. I’m all in favor of getting rid of legislated parking minimums, but it seems to me that, if a developer thinks that adding parking is more economical, they should be allowed to do so.
- ravetcofx 3y agoThis will prevent developers from keeping old poor habits around of bad land use
- ajmurmann 3y agoIf there is concern about underutilizing land, pass a land value tax and the market will figure out what's the best way to improve the value of the property itself beyond the windfall from the unimproved land going up in value due to surrounding economic activity. When it comes to housing the US seems to suffer some kind of disability that makes it impossible to not be tempted to steer towards a planned economy.
- ipaddr 3y agoLet the people with the most money decide?
- ajmurmann 3y agoThat's not how markets work
- Negitivefrags 3y agoIsn't that exactly how markets work? Isn't that exactly the whole point of capitalism? If people with money want strawberries, they buy more strawberries. Price of strawberries goes up. Farmers who could choose to grow strawberries or some other thing decide that they want to grow strawberries because the price is high. More strawberries are grown. The people who have the money to buy the strawberries indirectly caused more strawberries to be created. So yeah, the people with the money decide what gets created. This is a good thing.
- astrange 3y agoIt isn't how markets work because people with more money don't automatically want to spend more money on strawberries. Rather the inverse; they have more money because they haven't spent it on things yet. Although it's not a good general metaphor because strawberries are a consumption good and not used for your income like a car is.
- kiba 3y agoThe people with the most money pay the highest tax for the privilege of using the most expensive and most valuable land. If they're any good at it, they'll make a profit on it, the way it should be.
- madsbuch 3y agoWhile that is true in the abstract, it will take long to adjust. modern city planners have realized that car centric cities does not scale. ie. if you want to city that scales to Tokyo levels it needs mostly to rely on transit schemes. The US has an (alas, quite new) history of overindexing on cars. moves like this will drive the development faster than the market alone. however, parallel to this, tax for roads in cities should be increased and passed on to car owners. (in Denmark we pay 150% tax on cars. and that is on top of the 25% VAT we already pay) - right now car owners are being handed prime land almost for free in the US.
- ajmurmann 3y agoCar-centricity is definitely a problem. In addition to what you point out, I'd love to see a move away from any kind of parking mandate and removal of street parking. If there is demand for parking, let someone build a parking structure which is more space efficient and honestly less frustrating as a driver as well. I think the problem goes further though, but maybe once the fears of "congestion" are gone the fear of shadows and "becoming Manhattan" won't need able to hold us back
- infecto 3y agoDevelopers build what people want that fits into local code. If parking spots are not desirable they will figure it out quick.
- caesil 3y agoI think the idea is that if you want to build a building with 3+ spaces per unit, you should be doing it further away from transit. Let buildings with a higher ratio of housing density to parking be closer.
- floydnoel 3y agothis is 0.5 spaces per unit, not 3+
- tialaramex 3y agoYes, because you don't need a car if you live in a well designed city. I live in a UK city and I've read the plans for the building I live in, it was submitted twice before it was accepted. Nobody had a problem with the interiors, they're nice which is why I bought one. But the original plan was rejected in the 1980s for lack of parking -everybody needs two cars right?. The same plan (with internal upgrades, nobody wants 1980s bathrooms in a 21st century home) was submitted twenty years later and now it had too much parking. So they removed some spaces and it got the OK. Today it is 0.8 spaces per unit.
- infecto 3y agoThe Bay Area is far from a well designed city with fairly limited public transportation. Yes there is public transportation but it’s relatively limited compared to the places you may want to go.
- Ar-Curunir 3y agoBerkeley is decent in this regard compared to the rest of the Bay Area, in part because a large fraction of the population does not own cars.
- infecto 3y agoBerkeley is 10 sq miles. That does not really say much to me. Yes it’s great but it’s also tiny. Yes, the Bay Area is composed of multiple counties and municipalities but I think it’s a better comparison when talking about transit.
- iav 3y agoIf a developer is replacing a 2 story, 20 unit building with 20 parking spots with a new 5 story, 50 unit building, they shouldn’t be able to have more than 25 parking spots, as that is already a net increase from the status quo and will thereby increase traffic and congestion (the street isn’t getting wider…). The logical fallacy here is that it assumes those 25 units without a spot won’t just street park.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y agoSounds like a problem for a land tax. If cars make more money than homes and businesses, go for it.
- apsurd 3y agoyou really think so? i get the free market angle, but what about the local optimum risk? People want parking because they need parking. and they need parking because they need cars because everything's unwalkable because there's too much parking...
- infecto 3y agoYes get rid of minimums but really the first step here is having better public transportation.
- malermeister 3y agoTrying to shoehorn a market into everything is not necessarily a good thing. I'd prefer housing for low income folks over parking for rich tech dudes.
- HPsquared 3y agoIdeally, parking for low income folks.
- infecto 3y agoI am sure we all have different views here but parking maximums seems to discriminate the most towards low income folks as you would classify them. Those who are not working normal 9-5 or have employment that does not follow the Bart stops.
- infecto 3y agoI hate this and think it’s ideas like this that are dangerous. Thinking like this is discriminating against lower socioeconomic status individuals. This works well for the commuter going to downtown SF for their 9-5; taking weekend trips with a zip car. What about people who don’t work 9-5, or have a job that is not an easy bart hop away. Ideas like this are just has bad as the authors interpretation of past laws.
- Ar-Curunir 3y agoPoor people take public transit at a much higher percentage than well-off people. Making public transit more accessible would be a net win.
- infecto 3y agoI never said otherwise. Parking maximums does not make transit more accessible. You will have the same problem in the Bay Area that has persisted for decades, different opinions from different cities and the inability to build any kind of new regional transit. My point is that rules like this impact the lower socioeconomic individuals.
- infecto 3y agoJust adding to my opinion. I might be totally wrong but it always felt to me that the Bay Area suffers from the problem of doing things that feel good but don’t improve outcomes for people. Regional transit in the Bay Area is pretty miserable unless your destination is near a BART line. Don’t get me wrong, it can work but it’s fairly limiting. For those with higher disposable income it’s no issue at all. Take Bart and grab a Lyft or take a Lyft from the start. For those with Les disposable income it can be incredibly difficult, take Bart then a bus transfer, perhaps some final walking. It can be a nontrivial ordeal. It feels good to say cars are bad and implement parking maximums, but similar to the Neighborhood preservation rules in Berkeley, it’s really negatively impacting those without wealth.
- amluto 3y ago> For those with higher disposable income it’s no issue at all. Not for those with small children. Unless you have a private chauffeur, transporting a family to somewhere without parking that is poorly served by transit is a pain. And if you’re going somewhere where traffic patterns make light rail favorable but you need last-mile transportation that isn’t well-served by transit, I guess you need two chauffeurs so that you send one ahead to meet you at the fair end of the train? My theory has always been that, if policy makers want people to use cars less, they should make the alternatives better instead of making cars worse.
- nemo44x 3y agoYou think it’s weird that these types of people want to force others to be reliant on the state? That individual liberties are cast aside to empower the state even more?
- hacoo 3y agoProbably two reasons for this: 1. Mitigate traffic increases 2. Make anti car zealots happy