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Parking vs Housing: Mayor Wheeler Calls Debate ‘Over’

May 4, 2017 By TonyJ 5 Comments

Convenient parking is a problem in parts of Portland, Mayor Ted Wheeler conceded last week. But it’s a smaller problem than housing — and Wheeler says that when the two come in conflict, housing must be the priority.

“I want to put a marker down. The debate: ‘Parking vs. Housing?’ It’s really over.” – Ted Wheeler

The mayor’s words came at a Rose City Park Neighborhood meeting April 25th. Wheeler was asked by RCPNA board member Deborah Field what his plan was to “require developers to put in ample parking spaces” with new housing projects.

The mayor’s response was definitive:

But I want to put a marker down. The debate: Parking vs. Housing? It’s really over. That piece of the conversation is over. When younger families or younger people say they want to locate here, the first thing they’re saying isn’t ‘Boy I wish I had another parking space, or had access to a parking space.” What they’re saying is, “I can’t afford to live in this city.” And, so, the city, meaning the debate that happened over the last three years actually made a choice, and the choice was affordability and housing over access to parking. I just want you to be aware that that is a real dynamic and is a real choice and it was made with full community involvement.

The mayor told the crowd that “parking adds significantly to the cost of affordable housing.”

(This is true for both market-rate and publicly backed homes, for the simple reason that urban space costs money. You can read more about the effect of excessive parking on housing prices here.)

He suggested that neighborhoods, like Rose City Park, which want to manage their parking supply should form parking districts similar to those in Northwest Portland and the Central Eastside Industrial District.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation has spent years working to develop a framework for neighborhoods to create parking permit zones and parking benefit districts, but the policy has yet to be voted on by Portland City Council. Wheeler said he wouldn’t suggest simply taking the plan from NW Portland and moving it to Rose City Park, seemingly a contradiction to Commissioner Saltzman’s position that NW Portland is conducting a pilot for other neighborhoods to follow.

The mayor’s comments can be read here or viewed below (starting at 35:30).

20170425-RCPNA-Wheeler from portland politic on Vimeo.

Thank you to Catie Gould and E.J. Finneran for tipping us off to this news. Thank you to Michael Anderson for edits!

Innovative Permit Changes Proposed In NW Portland

May 1, 2017 By TonyJ 2 Comments

When Portland City Council decided not to extend minimum parking requirements into Northwest Portland in July 2016 the Northwest Portland Parking Stakeholder Advisory Committee (NW Parking SAC) began looking at other options to manage parking. The district had recently installed parking meters in the most congested parts of the zone and had a permit program which allowed for an unlimited number of annual on-street permits to residents and businesses for $60/year. According to a 2016 survey, there are 5,264 metered or permit on-street stalls in the parking district and 8,558 annual permits (employee, resident, and guest combined).

New Parking Rules Coming to Zone M This August - The goal of these changes is better parking management. We want to make it easier for residents, visitors, and employees to find parking. — Snippet from PBOT ad in NW Examiner

At a meeting on April 19th, the NW Parking SAC, which is made up of neighborhood and business representatives, recommended changes to their permit program which would increase the price of permits, limit availability through attrition, and provide incentives for residents who choose not to renew their permits.

The cost of permits will increase from $5/month to $15/month ($60 to $180 annually). Verified low-income residents will keep paying the original rate (a $120 annual subsidy). Low-income residents currently without cars will receive no transportation subsidy.

The revenue from the increased fees ($10/month) will be spent locally on incentives for residents who don’t renew permits to take other modes of transportation, this is referred to as transportation demand management (TDM). Non-renewing residents will have a choice between a $100 TriMet HOP card, an annual BIKETOWN membership ($144 value), or a 50% discount on an annual TriMet pass ($550 value).

All current permit holders will be allowed to renew their permit, there will be no lottery or auction to reduce the number of permits sold. Residents of multi-family housing, however, will be subject to attrition. A new building with 100 apartments would receive 40 permits for distribution and an existing building with 100 apartments would be entitled to 60 permits. These limits will apply to all buildings with 30 or more units. Residents of condominiums, smaller apartments buildings, and single family homes, however, will not be subject to limits.

A wealthy homeowner with 4 cars will still be able to get 4 permits.

These programatic changes are a step in the right direction and the incentives for not renewing a permit are a great use of permit revenue.

Will it work? Time will tell, but given the high cost of off-street parking in the neighborhood these measures probably don’t go far enough. Future changes will have to find ways to encourage people with rarely used cars to either share them, sell them, or garage them off-street.

This is one of two programs in the city testing out progressive parking management. Unfortunately, NW Portland and the Central Eastside Industrial District are the only neighborhoods currently empowered to test these methods and try to solve their parking problems. Commissioner Dan Saltzman should work quickly to pass the parking permit program developed by the Centers + Corridors Stakeholder Advisory Committee in 2015 and allow PBOT to work with neighborhoods to discover the most effective and politically palatable solutions.

Ask Commissioner Eudaly To Remove Barriers To Affordable Housing

April 26, 2017 By TonyJ 7 Comments

A proposal to build 40 affordable apartments in Sellwood is at risk because of minimum parking requirements. Currently, to qualify for a parking waiver, a development must be within certain distances of “20 minute” transit during the rush hours. How that level of service is defined is open to some interpretation, but it also ignores the holistic context of some of Portland’s neighborhoods.

Take a minute and email Commissioner Eudaly at chloe@portlandoregon.gov. Ask her to look into this situation in Sellwood. Ask her to work to remove barriers to more housing and let her know you think we need to build affordable housing, not more parking, in Portland. If you can, cc or bcc pdxshoupistas@gmail.com so we know our campaign is working.

Portland needs affordable housing much more than it needs required parking. The solution to Portland’s parking problems is not to build garages that will be a drag on our environment and economy, but parking management that ensures the equitable and efficient use of our on-street parking.

Commissioner Chloe Eudaly holds the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) in her portfolio and she was elected on a platform promising to address Portland’s housing crisis. Commissioner Eudaly can ask BDS to look into this issue and determine if there is a way to interpret the code to allow this project to go forward. If not, she may need to instigate changes to the inclusionary housing package to provide for greater flexibility. Almost 3 months have passed since affordable housing became mandatory and there has been very little utilization of the program. This project would be a big win, for housing advocates and for lower income people wanting to live in a complete neighborhood like Sellwood.

Inclusionary Housing In Sellwood Hits Parking Stumbling Block

April 22, 2017 By TonyJ 9 Comments

Update: Take a minute and email Commissioner Eudaly at chloe@portlandoregon.gov. Ask her to look into this situation in Sellwood. Ask her to work to remove barriers to more housing and let her know you think we need to build affordable housing, not more parking, in Portland. If you can, cc or bcc pdxshoupistas@gmail.com so we know our campaign is working.

In February 2017, new inclusionary housing rules went into effect in Portland and, as of early April, there has been only one qualifying multi-family building submitted for review under the new rules.

As previously reported, the Urban Development Group (UDG) asked for Early Assistance on refiling three permitted developments in Sellwood. If approved, this project could provide 40 units of affordable housing in Sellwood, but the deal is in jeopardy due to minimum parking requirements.

UDG is currently permitted to build three buildings in Sellwood. Combined, the projects would add 187 market rate units, 46 parking stalls, and no units guaranteed affordable for tenants making less than 100% of the median family income (MFI). These permits were filed, along with hundreds more, in the months before February’s inclusionary zoning mandate was enforced.

Less Housing = More (And Affordable) Housing. Permitted development has 187 market rate units, 0 guaranteed affordable, 46 parking stalls, proposal is for 170 market rate, 40 affordable, 0 parking stalls. — UDG Proposal would trade 46 parking stalls for 23 more homes (and allow 40 affordable homes)

The request for early assistance affirms much of what proponents of parking reform have been saying for years: Required parking reduces the amount of housing built and makes it more expensive. With the required 46 parking stalls waived, UDG would be able to build 23 more apartments for a new combined total of 210 homes. Of the 210 apartments, 170 would be market rate, 31 would be affordable to tenants making 60% of the MFI, and 9 would be affordable to tenants making 80% MFI.

For every two parking stalls eliminated in the project, we get one more home for Portlanders. Because those additional homes still bring in rents and the project is not burdened with expensive parking, the development pencils out with the affordable housing as well. This is how the system is supposed to work.

But the deal, as proposed, is unlikely to get approval from Commissioner Eudaly’s Bureau of Development Services (BDS).

To qualify for a parking waiver, the building must be “located 1500 feet or less from a transit station, or 500 feet or less from a transit street with 20-minute peak hour service.” That level of service is defined as “service provided by public transit to a site, measured on weekdays between 7:00 AM and 8:30 AM and between 4:00 PM and 6:00 PM. The service is measured in one direction of travel, and counts bus lines, streetcars and light rail lines.” BDS has some leeway in interpreting the code and according to their response to UDG, they don’t consider the level of service near 1717 SE Tenino Street to be sufficient. The issue seems to be a few points in the “peak hour” where the schedules have a gap of a few minutes beyond the 20 minute requirement.

There are two bus lines nearby 1717 SE Tenino that could be considered north/south routes (although one runs east/west at the location), the 99 and the 70 and the MAX Orange Line Station at Tacoma/Johnson Creek is just over 1/2 mile away (3 minutes by bike or 12 minutes leisurely walk). Combined, the transit options are very good and the location is in the heart of Sellwood, walking distance from restaurants, New Seasons, Sellwood Middle School and much more.

But unless BDS interprets the code favorably, say by considering TriMet’s admitted 3 minute plus/minus for schedules to provide some flexibility, it’s very likely that Sellwood will lose the opportunity to have 40 affordable units built and, in their place, shelter for 46 cars will be provided to the community.

Ultimately, however, the situation highlights the capricious nature of minimum parking requirements. A few minutes on a TriMet schedule can lead to a very walkable apartment building having the same requirements as a building far from transit in the SW hills.

If Portland City Council wants affordable housing to be built, they should remove all parking requirements for projects meeting the inclusionary housing mandate, wherever they are built. This would not only prevent corner-cases from sinking much needed housing projects, but would also help Portland catch up to our critical climate action goals.

Portland Included in FHWA’s Parking Pricing Case Studies

April 16, 2017 By Shoupista 1 Comment

(On-Street Parking in Boise Neighborhood)

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) last month released two documents – “FHWA-Parking Pricing Workshop Summaries” and “FHWA Sponsored Parking Pricing Projects Update 2017” – on parking management and pricing initiatives in several U.S. cities including Seattle, Denver, and Portland.

Since FHWA sponsored the Portland Parking Symposium in June 2015, the City of Portland has made notable changes in its parking policy and management programs such as (1) raising downtown meter rate to $2.00; (2) developing an on-street parking toolkit for NW Portland; and (3) removing parking minimums for housing projects under the Inclusionary Housing Zoning Code near frequent transit.

The workshop summaries document also noted a neighborhood on-street parking permit system in the works:

“few neighborhoods currently have parking permit programs, and the city is looking to enact new policies to address parking shortages where they exist. Everyone who lives in those residential districts will be entitled to parking; however, it will not be free”.

However, the highly anticipated permit program never came to fruition. After a year-long public process and receiving support from both neighborhoods and city staff , the residential permit program was blocked from even getting a vote by Commissioner Amanda Fritz. Subsequently, all documents and information about the residential permit program were removed from the project website.

The FHWA report shows many other cities, such as Boston, Denver, Houston, and D.C., use neighborhood residential permits to help manage on-street parking. There is no reason why Portland cannot implement this tool. It is unclear whether City Council plans to revisit the residential permit program this year, but the pressure for residential permits will continue to grow as some neighborhoods may resist new development under Inclusionary Housing and increasing housing infill due to fear for more competition for on-street parking.