LA getting serious about lifting parking requirements in downtown

https://la.curbed.com/2019/8/6/20698162/parking-minimums-downtown-los-angeles

by DoreenMichele • 7 years ago

109 168 7 years ago

la.curbed.com

pkaye2• 7 years ago

Is it the case that most people living in the downtown area don't have a car?

oomkiller• 7 years ago

There's quite a bit of capacity available for downtown residents, should they choose to own a car https://www.parkme.com/map#Downtown%20Los%20Angeles%2C%20Los...

pkaye2• 7 years ago

And how are the typical daily parking rates?

jaredklewis4• 7 years ago

I think most probably have a car, but I'm not sure it matters. Developers will cater to what people want. Most people will probably still want apartments with parking, so most development projects will continue to have parking.

Another portion of the population doesn't have cars or are otherwise uninterested in parking. This change would make it legal for there to be development projects that cater to this set of the population.

DannyBee2• 7 years ago

For the years i saw LA, everyone had a car, and used them religiously. Like, they would take their car to go around the corner. It's kind of ridiculous.

Hopefully it's changing.

mktmkr9• 7 years ago

LA has and has long had fewer cars per household than the national average (1.6 vs. 1.8 in the latest census). 12% of households have no car.

clairity3• 7 years ago

does removing parking minimums actually lower rents by the 17% of rent that's estimated to go toward parking?

parking podiums eat up the most pedestrian-friendly ground floor square footage, but i can sympathize with people wanting parking in their building. i wish all parking would be built underground, but yes, that's even more expensive.

rory0964• 7 years ago

does removing parking minimums actually lower rents by the 17% of rent that's estimated to go toward parking?

No, because removing parking minimums is not the same as removing parking.

parking podiums eat up the most pedestrian-friendly ground floor square footage, but i can sympathize with people wanting parking in their building.

In-building parking is a widely available amenity amply provided by the market. Regulatory parking requirements don't change that, they just make it illegal to not want parking.

VBprogrammer• 7 years ago

It's funny, in London new housing has been built with the explicit planning condition that residents aren't entitled to on street parking and no parking is included in the development.

clairity3• 7 years ago

i get all that, and i'm not against this change generally, but i'm wondering about whether the savings are actually passed-through or does the developer/owner capture that value? i'm skeptical that (most of) the savings accrues to the renter.

Reelin• 7 years ago

In-building parking is a widely available amenity amply provided by the market.

This is an odd claim to make. Regulation has historically required that it be provided in most (American) markets, hence the ample supply. I'm not sure how we could possibly know what the market would do on its own over the long term.

Requiring excessive parking will artificially and needlessly raises prices, true. But I would also be at least somewhat concerned that without sufficient regulation short term thinking on the part of builders might result in less parking than would be generally desirable.

I'm not at all convinced that urban planning should be done by market forces alone.

chapium• 7 years ago

It would likely only lower it for those who dont value that location for the extra 17%.

StringyBob• 7 years ago

Where I live (not in the US) we have parking maximums, not minimums.

A new office development will not get planning approval if it has more than 2 parking spaces per 3 employees (based on some obscure measurement of building capacity). This is to reduce congestion and encourage more environmentally friendly methods of transportation.

chc3• 7 years ago

I feel like this would be putting the cart before the horse in the US. Failing to put parking in a place with poor walkability and terrible public transportation doesn't seem like it would encourage much of anything.

mktmkr9• 7 years ago

The cars are the reason the buses are slow. 22% of LA workers travel to work without a car, which isn't great but it's not zero either. Metro LA added a dedicated bus lane on Flower and they are moving more than one bus per minute in that lane. As soon as you remove the cars everything else gets a lot better.

https://twitter.com/metrolosangeles/status/11538072082299576...

dsfyu404ed• 7 years ago

Failing to put parking in a place with poor walkability and terrible public transportation doesn't seem like it would encourage much of anything.

The glass half full answer is that it incentivizes economic activity to happen elsewhere.

bhupy• 7 years ago

If such a thing were to happen in the US, given the current state of infrastructure, optimistic scenario would be increased demand for UberPool / Lyft Line and carpooling in general. At least in the short term.

mayneack2• 7 years ago

Not in DTLA. There's plenty of public transit options that exist and more being built, so it seems like the right time to stop building new buildings with tons of parking. I live in Santa Monica and most people I know making a commute between Santa Monica and DTLA are already doing so carless.

IfOnlyYouKnew• 7 years ago

It's just lifting a requirement, for know. Presumably, there are currently cases where you have to build a parking lot even though it's the headquarters for Fundamentalist Cyclists International and situated right next to public transport.

After that, it's chicken-and-egg more than cart-and-whores. With surface parking lots taking up easily half the space in many US business districts, eliminating them could double density and thereby cut average distances in half, making other modes of transportation much more feasible.

Essentially, the US at one point chose cars as the dominant mode of transportation and got trapped in that decision. Anybody who has seen alternatives knows this is a tremendous burden on quality of life, yet any change will, in the short term, also hurt in different ways.

andys6276• 7 years ago

We've been digging the "cars first" hole for 75-100 years, so it is going to be painful for a while to get out. Less accommodation for cars is necessary for people to really consider alternatives.

rtkwe• 7 years ago

It's kind of a chicken and egg problem. As long as there's requirements to provide loads of parking space there's not going to be much pressure for proper walkable and public transit accessible locations and without locations being built around these ideas there's not pressure to make them accessible by non-car traffic.

adrianN4• 7 years ago

Places have poor walkability because parking wastes so much space.

nostromo• 7 years ago

Here’s a crazy idea: let the property owner and developer decide the correct amount of parking to provide. And the size of the apartments. And the number of floors to build.

The regulations here should be based around things like structural integrity, egress, and safety. Not views, not density, not what size of apartment is “too big” or “too small.” All of those are things the market can sort out.

seanmcdirmid2• 7 years ago

Isn’t that basically just the libertarian mindset? Ie let individuals optimize for their own interests, even when the t as the detriment of the community? Markets are definitely efficient in sorting out short term individual goals, but not much beyond that.

obelos3• 7 years ago

It's crazy because it doesn't work. All of those factors rely upon the use of common, municipal resources, and those municipal resources, especially streets, often can't be expanded.

zjaffee3• 7 years ago

I have to completely disagree with you here in terms of parking. Cities absolutely need to do significant transportation planning or you get the mess that exists throughout huge portions of the developing world. Even Los Angeles with it's traffic problems doesn't even come close to Mumbai. While governments aren't always good about solving these issues, the market would be worse as it's too decentralized to care about tragedy of the commons type problems.

Additionally, I also indirectly disagree with the last two points because it is absolutely crucial that cities have some control over population changes as it relates to density. Utility overload is a real issue, and needs to be accounted for. Schools need to get built, sidewalks widened, and so on.

What's ultimately needed is a form of adaptive city planning, that reacts to market forces (such as population changes, desire from developers to build new buildings, ect) with planned solutions such that there are no tragedy of the commons issues that come about. What's unacceptable is the 20+ year horizon planning that most cities do now.

rayvd• 7 years ago

This would eliminate too many middlemen and bureaucrats. We need the government to mandate what's optimal based on what lobbyists from parking construction firms advocate for. We also need to ensure the requirements are sufficiently high enough so that only a select few companies can effectively bid, ensuring minimal competition and maximum profitability, and maximum political donations.

This is a critical cycle that must be preserved!

hackbinary• 7 years ago

I am guessing that you are aligned political to the ideological view of the smallest possible government and regulations.

Unfortunately, developers and property owners will care nothing for the wider community. Firstly, at what point would you end regulations? Perhaps zoning and planning permission frameworks are too much? Let the market decide. Electrical, again that really is too much regulation, and we should let the free mark reign as people will have to adhere keep up their personal reputation.

The unfortunate fact is that personal reputation does not count for shit. Just look at Trump and Johnson. They outright lie and nobody is holding them to account, so what makes you believe that shonky developers and property sales people will hold to their word.

Secondly, our road systems and other community infrastructure can only accommodate and scale with so much growth. If growth is not managed reasonably, then our communities will become truly awful places to live.

I would agree that where population density is lower, then there needs to be less regulation, and where it is higher there needs to be more.

Finally, I would add that that charging 5p for disposable plastic shopping bags has had a hugely positive effect on curtailing the use of single use plastic bags.

Sometimes there is too much regulation, and sometimes there is too little, but fundamentally we need regulation, and participatory democrat systems to manage it.

Your quality of your life and ownership should not be obliterated overnight because somebody bought the neighbouring property and decided to build an industrial composting facility.

paggle• 7 years ago

You could do that if you enabled per-minute and per-meter billing for usage of municipal resources like driving on shared roads.

jandrese• 7 years ago

My building in the suburbs outside of DC had the same requirement put on them by the county. They weren't allowed to build enough parking to accommodate a full building in order to encourage people to use alternative transportation.

This is something of a problem because one of the features of the building is a large conference center where we can hold events. Luckily the older buildings on campus all over overbuilt parking so it's not a completely unworkable issue, but it does mean people who come for the conference need to walk over from the neighboring building.

I actually use the relatively convenient metro stop most days, but sometimes I have to drive and it is always a crapshoot if the underground parking will be full. The funny thing is my building is in one of the least walkable suburbs in the world. The suburb was completely built around cars and plans to make it even a little walkable are at least a decade way from completion (have not even started yet).

jayd165• 7 years ago

Maybe that's good long term, but the short and medium term is that existing business and residents that rely on street parking will be pushed out.

yesand2• 7 years ago

Yes, that’s the point.

tdxgx• 7 years ago

That's sounds insane for here in the US

Reason077• 7 years ago

In London, councils (and TfL, who are responsible for transport and roads) will often fight against developers who want to include excessive parking, or expand existing parking. Getting planning permission for new developments is significantly easier if they're car-free.

bartread4• 7 years ago

This is to reduce congestion and encourage more environmentally friendly methods of transportation.

A similar policy operates here in the UK, except that the parking allowance is significantly less generous.

I find it utterly asinine because it is not paired with the necessary corollary: you can't "encourage" more environmentally friendly methods of transportation, you have to actually - you know - take action and build the infrastructure.

Example: I live about 10 miles from the office and would cheerfully cycle into work come rain or shine because it would be great exercise, but there is no safe cycle route, so I'm forced to use some form of motorised transport (I have a car but usually ride a motorcycle). Buses are available but they're once an hour, take too long, are often tardy, and don't run late enough into the evening.

Depending on where you live there are better options available (guided busway paired with a cycleway, or the train) but there's no joined up thinking when it comes to more sustainable transportation. The result is that vast swathes of the area around Cambridge (UK) are either inadequately served, or not served at all.

hrktb• 7 years ago

I find it utterly asinine because it is not paired with the necessary corollary

Doesn't it self-regulate though ?

If it's not viable to build in a place for a specific use, developers will go to greener fields. It happens in a lot of heavily congested cities. Making whole areas unfit for heavy traffic moved the office building elsewhere, generally in places that where more welcoming to them.

C1sc0cat5• 7 years ago

I have a similar problem also in the UK (next door in Bedford) - That is the problem a lot of proponents of public transport don't want to address.

If you do want to get rich middle class people to use busses - you will have to accept that the services will have to have a lot more investment and increase in cost and be partially rebalanced away from servicing pensioners and to be blunt poorer workers.

The problem is local councils prioritise bus service in order to cater to the urban users who are mostly pensioners "granny farming"

adrianN4• 7 years ago

If you take away parking spots you gain room for cycle lanes. You can't build cycle lanes first.

laurencerowe• 7 years ago

Cambridge really needs to build enough housing for the jobs it has. People seemed to live in outlying villages because it’s so unaffordable. Apparently the colleges own all the land and haven’t really allowed many homes to be built. Good public transport is so much easier to provide in an urban environment.

C1sc0cat5• 7 years ago

Or bullying employees aka the little people

adrianN4• 7 years ago

What? "little people" are those who benefit most from a less car-centric city planning.

bahmboo• 7 years ago

Lost in this can be the specifics of "parking". Put in lots of 3-5 minute zones for ride hailing, add 10-15 minute spots for deliveries. Make sure there are enforced truck parking only for restaurant and business deliveries. Car share only parking. Scooter and bike parking. etc.

And yes, if I want full time parking for my car I will pay for it. It's not that expensive if that's my priority.

These are generally the kind of parking configs that most city people would benefit from.

mktmkr9• 7 years ago

1 shared car is shown to replace between 7 and 20 private cars in various deployments. Building new housing with dedicated car-share parking is a great way to go.

kbenson• 7 years ago

Housing may be a little harder to accomplish usefully for the people that would live there for this idea, but business would likely work well. The problem with housing (if it encompasses a large area and not just small subsets of the available area) is that some people functionally need a car for their job or life. Cutting off large amounts of housing from those that commute or those that need to make semi-regular long trips for other reasons (maybe picking up children weekly for a custody agreement, or taking care of a relative that is semi-dependent).

Maybe paid dedicated parking separate from the housing and only allowed to people that live in the area (with an increase in price for a second car for a household) would suffice, as long as it was planned well. But that's the problem, poor planning (or changes over time) could cause problems again.

wilsonchaney• 7 years ago

Hmm...source?

jjcm• 7 years ago

It's a good thought, but until public transportation is a 1st party citizen in LA, this will just cause more problems in the long run. Busses are still seen as a method of transport for impoverished people, not for the masses. Trains and light rail simply aren't a priority for either the city nor the population. For comparison, Sydney is similar to LA in terms of density and affluence, but has 7.7 times as many people riding their rail transport[1]. LA should be focusing on creating a positive draw to public transport by increasing service, availability, and quality, rather than creating a negative pressure by decreasing parking availability.

[1] 359m annual ridership in Sydney with a 4.6m population, vs 108m annual ridership in LA with a 10.1m population.

harmmonica2• 7 years ago

Your numbers may be apples to apples if that Sydney number is the greater metro, but just a note that the City of Los Angeles is "only" 4M or so.

gamblor9565• 7 years ago

However, the city of LA entirely includes several other cities within its borders, and the LA Metro area population is roughly 10-12 million...

Also with respect to the rail comparisons, most of LA Metro's ridership is on the bus system, which absolutely dwarfs Sydney's total public transit ridership, even after huge drops in ridership.

andys6276• 7 years ago

This is not a silver bullet, but a small step in the right direction. I think it causes problems in the short run, but helps strengthen public transit in the long run.

mixmastamyk8• 7 years ago

rather than creating a negative pressure by decreasing parking availability.

Backwards, they are talking about ending a subsidy, not reducing parking directly.

tempsy• 7 years ago

It’s frustrating how few cities in the US are liveable without a car. One of the best parts of SF is that it’s so small and easy to navigate without a car.

And NYC’s subway system is complete disarray. Not sure what other cities are manageable without one.

driverdan• 7 years ago

While US public transit is not good most US cities are livable without a car. You need some other form of personal transportation instead like a bike.

showerst• 7 years ago

If you live in the city proper or inner ring suburbs, DC is fine without a car, especially if you can afford the occasional uber.

I can't think of any others besides the 3 you mentioned that I'd want to go carless in offhand.

harmmonica2• 7 years ago

If you're talking about livable within the city limits (i.e., you don't live in the suburbs) then I think you'd find locals in Boston, DC and Chicago would say they can live happily without a car. I think a pretty significant chunk of folks in Philly, Portland (OR) and Seattle would probably say the same, though not to the same extent as those other ones. Not disagreeing that there are few overall, but there are a few beyond NYC and SF.

slg4• 7 years ago

As a resident of LA, I don't see this actually accomplishing much due to the specific market of downtown LA. Like the article mentions, basically all the new construction in that area comes in at the top of the market. Almost everyone in that socioeconomic class in LA has a car and would want a nearby place to park it. Developers therefore aren't going to build a new luxury high-rise and not provide parking for its residents.

That said, we might as well remove this regulation requiring parking if the market will dictate a similar level of parking anyway. I simply think this type of change would see a greater impact in neighborhoods in which car ownership levels are lower.

alkonaut• 7 years ago

Removing parking requirements for office and commercial buildings seems like a better end to start in. If you work in the city and live outside, you should be discouraged from driving, and/or be encouraged to drive only to hubs closer to the city and ride in on public transport.

slg4• 7 years ago

It depends on the goal. If the only goal is to reduce car usage, sure. However, the area already has a problem with housing costs and a rule like this would just cause costs to skyrocket near transit hubs. You need a more robust public transit system for that type of proposal to work without those negative consequences and LA isn't there yet.

andys6276• 7 years ago

Providing parking is expensive - perhaps developers will create units that are more affordable if they are not required to spend the extra money to provide parking.

briandear5• 7 years ago

Parking is hardly the driver of unaffordable housing. Requiring “affordable housing” as a condition of building “market housing” is what makes housing expensive — the market units have to be priced very high to cover the loss from the below market units. It’s essentially rent control on new construction.

zjaffee3• 7 years ago

The value of this is the law currently dictates that parking spaces must be provided on a per unit basis to the person living in the unit. This would often relate to not being able to split out the cost of parking from the cost of the apartment, so for those without a car they'd have to pay more.

slg4• 7 years ago

The law dictates construction of the parking spaces on a per unit basis, it doesn't require the parking spaces are rented/sold with the specific units. Developers are therefore already able to separate out parking costs from housing costs to a certain extent, but residential parking in LA is cheap compared to other large cities so there is probably still some subsidizing going on.

throwaway5421342• 7 years ago

I think this is just low cost/effort to reduce a particular problem. DTLA is the most walkable and accessible to public transit place in the city, the only issue is there's nothing there worth walking to besides the Staples Center.

The real area of focus for reducing traffic and vehicle usage should be the San Fernando Valley corridors (Sepulveda/405, the 5, and the 101 to San Gabriel Valley). Iirc from a recent report on KPCC there's like 600k daily commuters between the valley and the southland, and another 700k between the valley and San Gabriel Valley.

We have one metro stop in the SFV, which serves the 3 million residents. It's no wonder it's surrounded by a massive parking lot, and most commuters don't use it anyway.

slg4• 7 years ago

The real area of focus for reducing traffic and vehicle usage should be the San Fernando Valley corridors

I totally agree with you on this. Lost of people in this thread are talking about how good/bad transit access in the LA area, but there is no doubt the valley is totally undeserved in that regard.

gamblor9565• 7 years ago

DTLA is the most walkable and accessible to public transit place in the city, the only issue is there's nothing there worth walking to besides the Staples Center.

And Disney Hall, the Broad, and MOCA on Bunker Hill. Grand Avenue park for events. The Arts District and its many restaurants and breweries. Little Tokyo and the 3 museums there. FiDi's many restaurants. Historic Core and the old Broadway theaters, some still in use. The tens of thousands of new apartments constructed in South Park, Skid West, and Skidrokyo. For architecture nerds, nearly 100 years and a dozen different architectural styles spread out between all of the DTLA districts but especially in FiDi and HC.

We have one metro stop in the SFV, which serves the 3 million residents. It's no wonder it's surrounded by a massive parking lot, and most commuters don't use it anyway.

The sooner the Sepulveda Pass rail/monorail is built, the better.

mixmastamyk8• 7 years ago

nothing there worth walking to besides the Staples Center.

Impressive ignorance.

The historical, governmental, a cultural, entertainment, and now residential center is "not worth walking to."

And the Staples Center? Perhaps 99 on the 100 things to do list.

jayd165• 7 years ago

That said, we might as well remove this regulation requiring parking if the market will dictate a similar level of parking anyway

Part of the reason to enforce parking in new construction is to alleviate the pressure on street parking. Preexisting businesses could be pushed out as new construction draws more people without making parking available.

nwallin• 7 years ago

basically all the new construction in that area comes in at the top of the market.

There's a reason for this.

As a result of the fact that new construction is required to have 1-2 parking spots, developers need to put in a lot of parking. And because they need to put in a lot of parking, they need to be expensive. And because they need to be expensive, they might as well be luxury apartments. As a result of all this, all new construction is luxury apartments.

The biggest impact that lifting this requirement will have is that it will increase the amount of affordable housing.

gtirloni• 7 years ago

I don't know much about the US housing dynamics but it seems very unlikely that prices will get lower due to less parking being required. It's more likely the builders will profit more.

We went through a similar situation with airplane tickets where I live. The govt agency in charge of aviation and the airlines all wanted the free luggage requirement gone citing cost reductions. They got it, the fares didn't get any cheaper and now you have to pay extra.

I really don't see the 17% reduction in space required for parking being passed onto buyers. People will continue to demand 1-2 parking spots because that's a high cost area and people buying there don't care that much about that discount, if that even happens.

jameslk• 7 years ago

I'm not familiar with downtown LA but I haven't heard great things about public transportation in LA. Are they just trying to encourage less driving without providing any alternatives?

mixmastamyk8• 7 years ago

Downtown has the best transport access in the entire city. There are frequent trains in every direction and long-distance thru Union Station. While not Germany-level, it is quite good.

Combined with the rise of rideshare and rentals etc, large parking garages are becoming obsolete.

throwaway5421342• 7 years ago

Downtown has the best transport access in the entire city

The only problem is that most people don't have a reason to go there. The streets are usually empty aside from the homeless encampments.

The only reasons I've ever had to go to DTLA was to attend a conference and some games at the Staples Center. It's a cultural and recreational wasteland compared to the rest of the city.

andys6276• 7 years ago

Gov'ts can do 3 things - encourage something, do nothing, or discourage something. Parking minimums encourage people to drive cars. This is LA taking a small step towards picking winners (cars...) just little bit less.

User23• 7 years ago

And 4: act to accommodate the revealed preferences of its citizens.

andys6276• 7 years ago

I'd argue that if we prefer it so much, the free market would take care of it.

jayd165• 7 years ago

You have it backwards. Less than sufficient parking discourages travel to that area. If you want the area to proper and not simply feel pain, you can't just discourage cars without an alternative.

If you want people to use public transit, encourage public transit.

mixmastamyk8• 7 years ago

Never traveled, eh?

andys6276• 7 years ago

Not encouraging driving is not the same as discouraging driving. Eliminated parking minimums neither discourages or encourages driving.

eesmith4• 7 years ago

The point is to tone down the encouragement to get people to use cars, which is what the old policy did.

You cannot both encourage people to use cars and encourage people to not use cars - it's a waste of money.

exabrial• 7 years ago

As always, I have absolute faith the free market with arrive at the correct answer. It was government regulation that created the issues in the first place.

calvinbhai• 7 years ago

This is a win for Uber and Lyft. (wasn't Uber lobbying for this in all big cities?)

Once it becomes the norm, Uber/Lyft can continue jacking up prices.

mixmastamyk8• 7 years ago

It is the private cars that are currently being subsidized. Removing a subsidy shouldn't result in blaming of the victim.

They have a while to reach profitability and taxi-prices in any case. I won't blame them when they do.

crimsonalucard• 7 years ago

The parking requirement makes sense. LA is a city made for cars it's not SF or NYC.

LA getting serious about lifting parking requirements in downtown

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