In New York and elsewhere, the rules typically take the form of ratios [of parking spaces to retail and housing] that have been copied from one city to another, handed from one generation of engineers to the next without much study or skepticism.
In New York and elsewhere, the rules typically take the form of ratios [of parking spaces to retail and housing] that have been copied from one city to another, handed from one generation of engineers to the next without much study or skepticism.
It’s probably a fair point to mention that smaller cities and towns have wildly different parking needs than NYC, where the majority of residents don’t own a car. The existence of parking minimums in a place like New York is just bonkers. (Thanks, Robert Moses!)
I still expect plenty of parking to be built after any city repeals parking minimums, it just isn’t an excessive amount, and the city and developers soon start arriving at a natural equilibrium (compared to an inflated floor) of what is actually required, depending on what kind of business or residence it is, where it is located, etc.
The big factor about parking is how much it adds to housing costs. The Government Accountability Office did a report in 2018 that estimated that parking requirements added $50,000.00 to every housing unit sold. Obviously, some parking will probably be needed, but just reducing the amount has the effect of an immediate per-unit cost reduction for a given multi-family project. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-18-637.pdf
Yeah, sorry for the brain fart: centuries ago. I was trying to make the distinction of my city being built out mostly before cars, and it’s fairly old for the US.
Despite having a small population for a city, this means it’s structured more like we think of for major cities. It has a nice walkable center with transit options including a train station and plenty of higher density housing. There are no “stroads”.
We’re part of a regional transit network centered on the nearby major city. The change I have most hope for is a state zoning mandate that every community served by transit must allow higher density housing “as of right” near the transit. If a vpdeveloper wants to build a large apartment block within half a mile of transit, it can’t be a variance or special request, but starts with the assumption that it’s allowed. We’ll see how this plays out over the long run though
We’ve generally been fairly pro-housing, but city council has tried to slow that down over the last ten years ago so infrastructure can catch up. We finished a cycle of replacing all our elementary schools and one of the middle schools, and just spent an incredibly huge amount on a huge high school campus, so that removes the argument about crowded schools