Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/02/2006

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To chan§e enou§h minds, urban planners must offer society somethin§ better than off-street parkin§ requirements. a central computer, which updates signs on every level of the garage pointing the route to the nearest vacant space. The individual detectors are equipped with lights and visible along the whole aisle, showing whether a space is available--occu- pied stalls are red and vacant ones are green--so ddvers can easily see the nearest vacancies and avoid aisles of individual spaces anq zones, and the plentiful supply of parkinB makes eF'fic[ent use less important. office building to provide a lunchroom big enougfi to supply a ~'ee lunch at noon for everyone who works in the building, Parking requirements are espedallv dimticutt to reform because they are entrenched in zoning codes and embedded in decisions, and entit[ements. Their results have literally been cemented into the city. Not only will planners have to reject parkin§ requirements, but so too will businesses, property own- ers. voters, and elected offidais. To change enough minds. urban planners must offer society something better than off- street parking requirements, and planners de have aometh[n§ better to off~n parking benefit disthcts with markebpdced curb parking. Specifically. cities should de-require off-street parking. charge market pnces for curb parking, and spend the resulting revenue to pay for nei~hborbood public improvements. Removing off-street parking requirements does not mean off-street parkin§ will disappear. Instead. where demand drives up the pdce of curb parking, developers wdl provide additional off-street parking of their own volition and charge for [t accordingly. WHAT WENT WRONG? In attempting to assign a Specific num- berof cars to almost every economic ~unction in a c~ty, parking requirements provide an interesting window on[o the cities and showcase their quirks and pdofities. But cities are too complex to be ordered and catalogued, and no amount of ~ational planning or dogged. weU-intentrbned work wdl ever moas- where. E~eeause this is what parking requirements are meant to do. it is tie wonder they Pail so spectacularly. Current parking policies in cody. environmentally, and inteUectu- ally bankrupt. Admittedly. requiring development does seem sensib[e. If some peopie drive to work, should a · new office building not have some parking spaces? 50 what went wron§? The first problem is that planners require at least enough parking spaces to meet the peak demand for free park- ing, regardless of the cost. Second, and more fundamental, the parking require- also need food to live. but this does not RETROFITTING AMERICA Parking benefit districts can be retrofitted incrementally into existing nei~hbor- hooqs. The new distdcts are not quite ~ovemments and not quite businesses. but they share some charaetefisfics of each. ~ey will manage their Curd parking supply in a businesslike way, and the resulting ~evenue will support local public initiatives. C~gar~ing market pdces For curb parking will improve transportation, and the pub(it spendinB will improve neigh- bomoods. Removing off-street parking requirements will reduce the cost of deve[opment and wiU free up much urban land now le§ady dedicateq to parking lots. [n effecL cities have created an enor- mous land bank that can now be used for housing and other deve[oprnent if off- street parking requirements are removed.~6 The rosu[ts of removing qark- lng requirements will be ~radual rather than dramatic. A~ter cities emancipate themselves from off-street parking requirements, many small but significant reParms can fodow from the basic under, tending that 'free" parking has a high cost. In Los Angeles, ~or example, the Getty Museum char~es for parkinB but aqmits peoppa free, whde the Huntington Museum offers free parking but charg, es people for admission. Charging more For parking and less for people will improve city life. AN ILLUSTRATION: ADVISING THE MAYOR Some people seem to think that char~- ing market phces For curb parking would reduire a massively difficult social change, like prohibition or the Reformation. Nevertheless, it has worked smoothly where cities have established parkinB benefit d[sthcts. Although these districts represent only a marginal change to existing practices, they can produce major improvements. To put parking benefit districts [n the broader context of transportation, land use, and public finance suppose the mayor of a city in a developing nation asks for advice on how to deal with the parking problems caused by rapidly increasing car ownership. Consider two possible po(iciest (ti keeq curb parking free and require aU development to proviqe off- ZONING PRACT1CE s.0a