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Better Parking Policy For The City of Roses

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Affordable Housing for Cars is One of the Major Obstacles to Affordable Housing for People

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Following up on a blog post on minimum parking requirements’ impact on inclusionary zoning, I want to further illustrate why requiring parking minimums for residential development is an unwise policy.

Parking requirements reduce the number of affordable units a development can provide.

Housing in Portland has becoming more and more unaffordable. The average market-rate rent for a 900ft2 two-bedroom apartment unit in Portland is $2,007 per month[1]. However, the affordable monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment for a household of three earning 80% of the area median income is $1,323 per month[2].

Let’s say there is a hypothetical development for 100 two-bedroom units in inner Portland with good transit access. The City of Portland can require up to 20% of units be affordable to households earning 80% of the area median income – so 20 affordable units and 80 market rate units. The developer will be given a choice to pay a fee instead of building the affordable units. .

In this scenario, let’s say providing 20 affordable units with 80 market rate units and no off-street parking can achieve the lowest monthly revenue for the developer. Existing Minimum parking requirements, however, will require this development to provide a minimum of 33 parking spaces[3] (minimum parking requirement for 50+ unit multi-family development near transit corridors is 0.33 per unit). In order to make room for 33 on-site parking spaces[4], the developer might only build 95 units instead of 100 units.

Now, if the developer was required to build 20% affordable units, the development will have to provide 19 affordable units and 76 market-rate units. You might say losing only one affordable unit is not a huge loss. But it is not so simple. Remember, our assumption is that providing 20 affordable units with 80 market rate units can achieve the lowest monthly revenue for the developer. With that in mind, we can estimate the monthly revenue using the average market rate rent and the affordable housing rent for these units. The average market-rate rent for a 900 ft2 two-bedroom apartment in Portland is $2,007 a month and the maximum rent affordable for a two-bedroom apartment for a household of three earning 80% area median income is $1,323 a month.

In the first scenario, the developer makes the lowest monthly revenue by earning $187,020 per month ($2,007 x 80 + $1,323 x 20 = $187,020). In the scenario with 33 required parking spaces, to earn at least as much revenue, the developer will have build 90 market-rate units and 5 affordable units ($2,007 x 90 + $1,323 x 5 = $187,245). In other words, the same development needs to reduce 15 affordable units because of parking minimum to make the development financially feasible.

Parking Requirements Reduce the Number of Affordable Units-01
In addition, the construction plus maintenance cost of the 33 parking spaces will need to be covered by additional revenue streams. This means that either market-rates apartment units will be more expensive or there will be fewer affordable units. The bottom-line is parking degrades affordability for everyone.

Parking requirements make all housing more expensive for everyone.

There are a number of studies in the U.S. that estimate how much renters pay for the hidden costs of parking, even if they don’t own a car at all. For example, the Sightline Institute reported that renters pay about $246 per month to cover landlords’ losses on parking in the Seattle area[5]. Using the average residential parking construction costs in Portland and a parking cost calculator, I developed a more conservative estimate that each unit in our hypothetical development will need to pay $121 a month for the 33 on-site parking spaces[6] [7].

$121 may not sound like a lot of money to some people, but let’s put it in perspective. The difference between the average market rate rent for a two-bedroom apartment ($2,007) and the maximum affordable rent for a household of three earning 80% of area median income ($1,323) is $684. We can consider that an affordable housing subsidy. The monthly parking cost for each tenant, regardless if they own a car or not, is 18% of that subsidy. When people are getting pushed out of their neighborhoods and unable to find housing near their jobs, do we really want to spend 18% of affordable housing subsidy for people to park their cars?

Parking Costs in Perspective 1-01Parking Costs in Perspective 3-01

Moreover, for a household of three earning 80% of area median income, $121 is 9% of the maximum affordable rent per month. In other words, requiring parking also means requiring low-income Portlanders to pay an additional 9% of their rent for someone else’s parking space. If our neighbors and elected officials really care about housing affordability and displacement, they should understand that requiring parking for residential development only exacerbates the affordability crisis and helps displacing more people by making rent more expensive.

Parking Costs in Perspective 2-01

Parking minimum requires more affordable parking for cars than affordable housing for people.

Even with inclusionary zoning, the City can only require up to 20 affordable units in our hypothetical development. However, minimum parking requirements generously give 33 spaces to cars at the cost of higher rent for everyone, regardless if they own a car or not. Comparing the size of two parking spaces and the size of a two-bedroom apartment, it becomes even more clear that our current land use policy prefers housing automobiles rather than people. Two parking spaces plus the turning aisle take up about 864 ft2 whereas a two-bedroom apartment is about 900 ft2. Put it simply, every time a development is required to make room to store two cars, the same amount of space could be used to house a family of three.

More Affordable Housing for Cars than Affordable Housing for People-01

Parking increases housing costs for everyone and reduce the total number of affordable housing units. Parking also takes up valuable building space that could otherwise be used to house people instead of storing cars that sit idle most the time during a day. Portland’s elected officials and residents must recognize that parking degrades housing affordability and equity by requiring renters pay for someone else’s parking space. As long as we continue to require affordable housing for cars, policies that support affordable housing for people will always be thwarted.

2 Parking Spaces Equal 1 Apartment-01

[1] Median Rent List Price per Sq Ft, Multifamily 5+ Units, Zillow, February 2016

[2] State of Housing Report in Portland, Portland Housing Bureau, 2015

[3] City of Portland Planning and Zoning Code, Title 33. March 1, 2016

[4] Cost of Onside Parking + Impacts on Affordability. Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, 2012

[5] Who Pays for Parking? Sightline Institute, 2013

[6] Cost of Onside Parking + Impacts on Affordability. Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, 2012

[7] Parking Cost, Pricing, and Revenue Calculator, Victoria Transportation Policy Institute

Performance-Based Parking Management Coming To Portland

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An important step towards performance-based parking management in Portland will, with any luck, take place on in mid-April.Parking Pay Station

On Wednesday, April 13 at 2PM Portland City Council will (most likely) direct the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to develop a set of rules, regulations, performance targets, and policies to manage on-street parking more efficiently.  A stakeholder advisory committee will be seated to make recommendations and perform vetting on the staff proposals.

Performance-based Parking Management (PBPM), according to PBOT, will:

  • Establish clear performance goals for the management of the on and off-street public parking system.
  • Identify evaluation measures using data to inform changes to parking rates, policies and programs.
  • Implement demand-based parking practices as a means of allocating parking spaces in metered areas.
  • Outline communication procedures to inform the public of changes in parking management in particular areas.

Indications are that PBOT is aiming for a performance-pricing system for metered areas that is less technologically dependent than the vaunted SFPark system, but a bit more dynamic than Seattle’s parking program.

The technology available for implementing managed parking solutions is becoming more affordable and powerful by the day.  Integration with parking applications like Passport, ParkMe and Citifyd can make expanding and enforcing paid parking zones near commercial corridors possible.  Neighborhoods can benefit greatly from safety improvements and small infrastructure projects paid for by revenue generated in such districts, businesses will see higher turnover, and customers will find themselves less frustrated when they are able to find convenient parking at a reasonable price.

Keep an eye on this process as it moves forward.  There will be many opportunities for advocacy and public involvement.

 

Central City 2035: Comments on Parking Policy Reforms

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Thursday, March 31, 2016 is the deadline to make comments on the Central City 2035 Discussion Plan.  The document is quite lengthy (over 200 pages) and addresses many topics.  Effectively the Central City 2035 Plan is the blueprint for the next 20 years of the heart of our city. Many advocacy groups are poring over the details to submit testimony and Portland Shoupistas has drafted some comments on the parking related portions.

Our comments, which you can view on Google Docs are focused, primarily, on two aspects of the plan:

  • Shared use of existing and to-be-built parking stalls for commercial and residential uses.
  • Implementing parking maximums for all parking usage types.

These policy recommendations, which came out of the Central City Parking Policy Update Stakeholder Advisory Committee are designed to “limit the growth of the parking supply and encourage the use of alternative modes to support the mode split goals for the Central City.”  The policies are a bargain of sorts, the city proposes to tighten parking maximum entitlements for much of the central city, but they are offsetting those restrictions by allowing building managers the freedom to use virtually all of their parking as they wish.  Currently, building managers cannot lease spaces built for residential uses to commuters or downtown visitors.  

Additionally the city proposes to allow developers to retain some, or all, of their parking entitlement which can be bundled into future projects nearby if they find that they beuilt too few spaces for their building.

All in all these are smart policies in our opinion and they should, in theory, lead to less structured parking being built in the central city and more efficient uses of the parking we already have.  But there are some potential pitfalls and the proposal could be improved by staff or the planning commission before enactment:

  • Some areas of the central business district (CBD) are seeing increases in their parking entitlement.  Currently the densest, most transit-rich portions of downtown have parking maximums of .7 or .8 parking stalls per 1000 square feet of commercial or office space.  The proposal, in a good-faith effort to simplify the code, has created one zone for much of downtown with a ratio of 1 stall per 1000 square feet.  This is a lower maximum entitlement than some areas, but the increase in the city core should be eliminated.  At the very most the parking ratio should be held at .75 stalls per 1000 square feet in the CBD.
  • When combined with the shared parking allowance, we could be dramatically increasing the amount of commuter parking available downtown see this example from out testimony:

Under current maximums, a hypothetical building in the CBD might be limited to 80 spaces for 100,000 square feet of office space and might build 120 stalls to support 100 residential units.  The argument for shared parking suggests that a developer might be inclined to build 120 stalls total under the new policy, rather than 200 stalls (say ⅓ of the residents don’t move their cars every day).  Under the proposed policy, however, the developer would have a maximum parking entitlement of 220 stalls as the proposal increases the maximums in the CBD by 20-30% for many sites for office and commercial use.

  • The biggest problem with the proposal is that it doesn’t get us closer to meeting the city’s own 2035 mode split goals.  The parking built in the next decade will last for 50 years or more, inducing demand for driving downtown, taking up space, and causing pollution.  Our admirable and aggressive mode split target is that fewer than 25% of trips to the city center should happen by single occupancy vehicle in 2035, just 19 years away.  If PBOT is serious about meeting these goals, they should commit to developing and sharing an analysis that ties off-street parking maximum allotments to mode split targets in each zone of the central city.  Without such analysis showing that the proposed maximums will be effective, we must assume they won’t be effective.

Our comments recommend cutting the residential and commercial parking entitlements by 50-75%.  These lower ratios take into account the effective increase in current supply provided by the legalization of shared use parking and are an attempt to tie parking maximums to the city mode split goals.

Read our entire testimony here. If you would like to sign onto our testimony you can add a comment to the google document or comment on this story.

 

Parking Wonk Night: Tuesday 3/29 6-9PM

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Join us next Tuesday, March 29th from 6-9PM at the downtown Portland offices of Lancaster Engineering for  a BikePortland Wonk Night featuring “Parking Superheroes.”

Lancaster Engineering’s offices are located at 321 SW 4th Ave #400, Portland, OR. Parking Lot

Momentum is building around parking policy changes here in Portland and there should be lots to talk about:

It sounds like there will be a great group of folks present to answer questions, present information, and just help the conversation along:

  • Chris Smith from the Planning and Sustainability Commission
  • Joe Cortright from CityObservatory
  • Your’s truly, Tony Jordan from Portland Shoupistas
  • Brian Davis from Lancaster Engineering
  • City staff are very likely to attend as well
  • Most importantly, YOU and other Shoupistas!

You can read more at the BikePortland event page or on the Facebook event page.  Drinks and snacks will be provided.

Hope to see you there!

 

Portland’s Central Eastside to Blaze the Way for Market Rate Permits

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Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District (CEID) has a parking problem, and the Central Eastside Industrial Council (CEIC) is pursuing a smart solution.  The CEID doesn’t have any dedicated parking garages and with rapid growth on the horizon the on-street parking situation will only get more congested.  Fortunately, rather than requesting (or demanding) minimum on-site parking requirements in the area, the CEIC plans to raise the price of parking permits to rates rarely seen in the United States.

According to this notice sent to residents and businesses affected, the price of area parking permits in the zones N

ndustrial Portland Oregon
Photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/71380981@N06/

and G will double on May 1st, going from $70 a year to $140.  At the same time, the district will begin restricting access to permits by way of attrition.

But the move towards market rate prices won’t stop there.  In May of 2017, permits will be renewed for $210 per year and the in 2018 a permit renewal in these zones will cost a respectable $300 per year.

While still far cheaper than the cost many apartment dwellers would be expected to pay for on-site structured parking, $25 a month is much closer to what we would expect a market rate for on-street parking than the $5 a month charged, currently, for a “hunting license” in Northwest Portland.

Indeed, with the prospects for minimum parking requirements in Northwest Portland looking not-so-good, Rick Michaelson and the Northwest Parking District Stakeholder Advisory Committee would do well to follow the CEID’s lead and set a schedule for increasing permit rates.

This is a major step in the right direction for permit pricing, hopefully the CEIC decision will embolden PBOT staffers and city council to pursue similar rates for the new residential permit programs which may come before council this spring.