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Wednesday Parking Round-Up: Seattle converts parking into parks, parking fee in-lieu instead of parking minimums, and more

July 13, 2016 By Shoupista Leave a Comment

(Photo source: mynorthwest.com)

#NONEWPARKING “If cities want more people to use modes other than the automobile they should stop building new parking”

Stop boosting supply! The first of six parking reforms for adaptive parking policy

From parking space to community space. SDOT offers grants for communities to convert parking into parks and extends PARKing Day to PARKing Day Plus

In a suburb of Melbourne, sidewalk makes way for on-street parking

Variable pricing based on demand, way-finding signs, and better management are recommended to address parking problem in Salt Lake City.

City of Napa exempts six new development from parking minimum at the edge of its downtown core to maximize buildable space and asks developers to pay a parking fee in lieu.

Portland City Council Decides Against Expanding Parking Minimums… For Now

July 11, 2016 By TonyJ 3 Comments

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, two hours of testimony, mostly from Shoupistas and affordable housing advocates, convinced a majority of Portland’s City Council to hold off on extending minimum parking requirements into NW Portland.

In the days leading up to the hearing it seemed that members of the NW Parking Stakeholder Advisory Committee had convinced a majority of City Council that a “tourniquet” was needed to stop new buildings with no on-site parking from being built in the

City Council Hears from BPS on Minimum Parking Requirements

very walkable NW Portland neighborhood. A seeming majority of the 10 Portlanders who requested minimum parking requirements from City Council recognized that the policy they were asking for was flawed and needed reform, but they felt it was better to take action now and fix the citywide policy later.

For most of the 19 people who spoke out against an expansion of the current policy, however, the potential for harm to our already critical housing crisis was too great to take such a chance. Chris Smith, a member of the Portland Planning Commission, pointed out that there were roughly 25 parking management strategies identified by the Centers + Corridors Stakeholder Advisory Committee and nearly all of them should be tried before minimum parking requirements.

“Woefully Underpriced”

The hearing was notable for the breadth and quality of discussion around parking policy. Commissioners Nick Fish, Steve Novick, and Dan Saltzman were genuinely engaged and participating in what at times seemed to be an ad-hoc brainstorming session on parking management strategies.

The biggest impact of the hearing might be the shot-in-the-arm it gave to the on-going process to develop an overnight Residential Parking Permit program. Steve Novick, the transportation commissioner, was asked several times about the status of the recommendations from the Centers+Corridors SAC, a process that has seemed to stall out in recent months. There was a general consensus that the residents of NW Portland needed more tools, sooner rather than later, to deal with on-street parking congestion, and more effective parking permits are a likely solution.

One of the bigger obstacles to implementing an effective residential permit program has been the expected resistance of City Council to higher permit prices. Currently, the annual cost of most residential permits is $60, with the exception being the Central Eastside Industrial District where employee/residential permits now cost $140 annually. But the prospects for market-rate permits may be changing. Mayor Charlie Hales commented that “five bucks a month [for parking permits] is crazy low” and Commissioner Dan Saltzman said that he now agrees that “on-street permits are woefully underpriced.” We’re unlikely to see the price of on-street parking approach the $150+ a month it costs to rent a dedicated space in NW Portland, but $25+ a month for residential permits now seems like far less of a stretch than it did a week before the hearing.

Repeal or Reform?

So what is next for Portland’s minimum parking requirements? While an outright repeal seems unlikely, council members seemed ready to revisit the 2013 thresholds, ratios, and exemptions. Most notably, Commissioner Nick Fish was concerned that the 30 housing unit threshold he authored in 2013 was having unintended consequences on the housing market, as previously reported.

There appears to be an opportunity for a reform of the 2013 requirements to mitigate the impact on the housing market. Exempting affordable housing from the requirements (such that a 40 unit building with 10 affordable apartments would have no parking requirement) was mentioned as one strategy. In-lieu fees are another possibility, which could be particularly potent if the proceeds went to affordable housing and/or affordable transit subsidies.

We surely haven’t seen the last of this issue. The next few months will be critical to watch and participate in any efforts to change the current regulations and, likely, expand them into NW Portland.

Tell Portland City Council: Housing For People Is More Important Than Space For Cars

July 4, 2016 By TonyJ 3 Comments

Parking Spaces Take Up Valuable Space — Not only is parking expensive, but parking stalls take up valuable space that could contain more homes.

On Wednesday, July 6th at 2PM the Portland City Council will consider a request to require parking for all housing developments with more than 30 homes in the NW Plan District. The request doesn’t come from the Planning and Sustainability Commission (PSC), that body rejected the policy based on concerns it would raise rents and reduce housing supply. Instead, well connected members of the NW Parking Stakeholder Advisory Committee (NW Parking SAC) have lobbied city council in recent months to override the PSC recommendation and impose these new restrictions on future construction.

These parking requirements are not a solution to parking issues in NW Portland. Many high-end developments in NW Portland are built with ample parking, so much parking that the average number of spaces per home in new construction is already higher than the proposed requirements. New regulations would require all developments with 31 homes or more to build parking on-site. If this happens, fewer apartments will be built and they will cost more per-unit to construct.

Portland is experiencing a housing crisis. Thousands of Portlanders are being displaced by higher rents and redevelopment of their existing apartments. In times like this, proposals which curtail the supply of new housing and increase rents should be dead on arrival. A vote for minimum parking requirements is a vote to make the housing crisis worse.

City Council Needs To Hear From YOU

Portlanders who are concerned about housing availability and displacement must let City Council know that this is the wrong solution for this problem. Here is how you can help.

Write to the Commissioners

Send an email to the members of City Council. We suggest you do this by Tuesday July 5th.

Write to Commissioner Steve Novick, Mayor Charlie Hales, Commissioner Nick Fish, Commissioner Dan Saltzman, and Commissioner Amanda Fritz. Let them know that this is the wrong move to make in a housing crisis. Portlanders are looking for leadership and action on housing and will not tolerate steps backward on this issue.

Send testimony to City Council

Before the hearing on Wednesday, July 6th you can send written testimony to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov. The subject should be “NW Parking Update Project.”

Testify in person at the hearing.

The biggest impact will come from people showing and speaking to council. Council needs to hear from people who face rent increases and displacement due to poor policy such as this. Testifying is easy. Simply state, in your own words, why this issue concerns you and tell council that you want them to reject minimum parking requirements.

July 6th, 2PM @ Portland City Hall

If you plan to testify, please RSVP via this form so we have an idea of what support we can expect.

Spread the Word

We have prepared a fact sheet for your convenience. Tell others who will be affected by this policy change.

Wednesday Parking Round-Up: PDC plans to build 3 surface parking lots on Water Avenue, new parking meters in Portland’s Central Eastside, and more

June 29, 2016 By Shoupista 1 Comment

(Source: KOIN)

Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District got 29 new parking meters between Burnside and Belmont to address increasing on-street parking demand.

Portland Development Commission plans to buy and lease three large lots from Oregon Department of Transportation on SE Water Avenue, and turn them into 3 surface parking lots and build a parking garage in the future.

Sidewalk Lab, a Google subsidiary, proposes app that integrates Portland’s parking and transit services. But are Portland’s parking and transit issues caused by factors that can be addressed by an app?

The City of Minneapolis tries to encourage development on its acres of surface parking lots by changing the incentive structure to own and operate a surface parking lot in downtown.

The City of San Francisco surveyed 2,349 residents on the residential parking permit program. Here are some of the things they learned: (1) only 43% of residents living in the permit zone said they have a on-street parking permit; (2) 73% of the people who have permits only have 1 parking permit; (3) only 31% of all surveyed residents said they commute by driving alone; and (4) 77% of residents indicated they found parking within 3 blocks of their home.

Did Portland City Council Suppress Housing Supply in 2013?

June 28, 2016 By TonyJ 10 Comments

On July 6th, Portland City Council will be asked by members of the NW Parking Stakeholder Committee to require tiered minimum parking requirements, described below, in the Northwest Plan District.

Although the Planning and Sustainability Commission declined to recommend this zoning change, citing concerns about housing affordability, several commissioners remain undecided and it seems very possible that council will override the planning commission’s recommendation.

Regardless of the outcome next week, a larger question looms for those concerned about housing affordability and the impacts of parking policy on our city: When will we revisit the 2013 decision to require parking in transit oriented housing developments?

A Recap

In 2002, City Council passed zoning rules that allowed new residential developments within 500 feet of frequent service transit to be built without on-site parking. Unfortunately, City Council, which included then-councilman Charlie Hales, did not follow up and provide neighborhoods with viable residential parking permit programs and other parking management tools to accompany the potential new developments.

Ten years later, some developers began building apartments with little or no on-site parking, most notably along SE Division Street. The result was a backlash from influential neighborhood activists who demanded that on-site parking be required. After several hearings, City Council imposed a tiered system of minimum parking requirements on new construction:

Buildings with 30 or fewer housing units could be built with no parking.
Buildings with 31-40 units would need to build parking at a ratio of 1 stall for every 5 housing units.
Buildings with 41-50 units would require 1 stall for every 4 housing units.
Buildings with 51+ units would require 1 stall for every 3 housing units.

See page three of this PDF for the actual zoning code.

Opponents to these rules pointed out that parking is expensive. An average parking stall in the USA adds ~$225 in costs for a building, therefore a required parking ratio of 1:3 adds a cost burden of more than $70 per housing unit. If a property manager can’t recoup the full cost of parking by renting the space, then the overage will be spread out among the other residents of the building.

Furthermore, parking requirements generally lead to less housing. Surface parking uses up land that could hold more housing units. Above ground parking takes up space in the building where more people could live. Underground parking is most expensive and takes up less space, but room for apartments is still lost to entrances and stairways to access the parking.

What Was The Effect?

So what effect did the 2013 changes have on our rental housing market?

No one knows for sure.

The city did not make estimates in 2013 of the effect on housing supply and prices. The city did not study the effects of the new policy. The NW Parking Stakeholder Committee has not provided estimates on the effect of housing supply and prices in NW Portland if they are successful in their appeal for minimum requirements.

What we do know is that the average cost per housing unit in Portland was on the decline prior to the 2013 amendments (although we cannot prove that increase was caused by the parking requirements).

We can also look around and see that there are new developments going up with exactly 30 units and that’s a sign that parking minimums are restricting housing supply. There’s no reason a development should have exactly 30 units, but a survey of Next Portland reveals an unusually high number of those buildings. To collect the data for the following graph we did a search on for articles on NextPortland.com and “3X unit” or “3X units” where X was 0-9. We placed each development’s address on a list. While not scientific, this provided an eye opening distribution.

There are at least 14 projects proposed or built in the last two years with exactly 3o housing units (at least one has on-site parking). There are 12 other developments with 31-39 units. Of the 12 developments with 31-39 units, three of them are east of SE 140th, one is a subsidized affordable housing development on the South Waterfront with no on-site parking, and two are in NW Portland which (currently) has no minimum parking requirements.

Without an arbitrary parking requirement, how many of the buildings with exactly 30 units would have more housing? We can’t know for sure, but it is very likely that 30-60 additional units would have been built among those developments, two additional building’s worth. A similar, but smaller, spike for buildings with exactly 40 units exists with very few buildings built containing 41-45 units.

Why 30?

Surely there was a good data driven reason to pick 30 units as a threshold.

But there wasn’t. The Planning and Sustainability Commission proposed a single 40 unit threshold for new transit oriented developments with a single ratio of 1 space for every 4 units. Commissioner Nick Fish proposed an amendment that created two additional tiers at 3o and 50 units. The effect of these amendments was to further suppress the amount of housing built in the city of Portland since 2013, a time period coinciding with record rent increases due to extreme demand for housing.

Fool Me Once…

In 2013 the City Council made a bad decision because there was public pressure from influential activists and anxious neighbors to solve a perceived crisis. In 2013, no one had heard of Lyft, rents were high but not as astronomical as they are now, and impacted neighborhoods had few tools at their disposal to manage parking.

In 2016, NW Neighbors have a plethora of parking management options at their disposal. They recently expanded permit zones and won’t know the effect that has had until later this year. Meanwhile, we are in the middle of a housing crisis and council should think very long and hard about enacting policies that lead to less housing. Who is clamoring for this policy? Is it renters and affordable housing advocates? Doubtful. Homeowners with stable housing who enjoy a highly subsidized public resource of on-street parking are the influential group who are lobbying council for these restrictions.

We should be repealing minimum parking requirements throughout the city, not expanding them.

Please join Portlanders For Parking Reform on July 6th and testify against this regressive policy.

Note: This article was originally published with data that did not include 2 additional 30 unit buildings and 5 buildings with 31-39 units. The collection method is not scientific and it is very possible that there are additional developments we are not aware of, or developments which were proposed with 30 units and were built with more or fewer than the proposal. The premise of the article, however, should hold: an arbitrary threshold will suppress housing development above that threshold.