Yes, really.
I gave my keynote speech at the Arizona State University (ASU) conference yesterday morning, and it was only my second favorite talk I attended. Which one beat it out? A panel on mandated parking. All 3 of the speakers made cogent, passionate, fact-filled arguments against parking mandates. The moderator who asked questions was Stephen Silvinski of the Pacific Legal Foundation, who did an excellent job of asking the right questions. The three presenters were Yassami Ansari, vice mayor of Phoenix; Tony Jordan, co-founder of the Parking Reform Network; and David King, an associate professor at ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.
How could this have been interesting? And why would it matter? Stephen Silvinski got answers by asking each how he or she came to be involved in this issue. That’s when I got really interested. David King led by telling how he had had a friend in Minneapolis who wanted to start a coffee house in an old mansion that people could walk to. It would have had a capacity of 13 seats. The city planners looked at their formula and decided that to get permission, his friend would have to provide 7 parking spaces. That would mean demolishing the old mansion next door. The coffee house never was built.
So David started looking into it and he came across a book by UCLA professor Donald Shoup titled The High Cost of Free Parking. That led him to a Ph.D. program at UCLA and ultimately to an academic position at ASU. The other two told how they got involved. What was clear in each case was a fair degree of passion for the cause and an understanding of how absurd mandated parking is. David King put it well: “The [government] planners pretend that they have this amazing expertise.” Ansari pointed out that when developers looked at a new project and consider the required parking spaces, the projects didn’t “pencil out.” That is, they weren’t worth it.
Someone in the audience asked why there’s still such belief in mandated parking. Tony Jordan suggested that one reason is that people can use the mandated parking requirement as a bargaining chip to get other things they desire in return for a variance.
King stated that one reason temperatures have been so high at night in Arizona during the last few summers is that the asphalt for increased parking soaks up heat during the day and releases it at night.
Here’s a map showing where some degree of parking reform has occurred in the United States.
READER COMMENTS
MarkW
Dec 2 2023 at 9:46am
I live in one of those ‘reform spots’ (Ann Arbor, MI). Unfortunately (but predictably), our local officials have not actually removed parking mandates. In place of the previous parking minimums they’ve switched to imposing parking maximums (men and women of system don’t really change — they just modify the rules of the system). So we now have ‘Transit Corridor’ zoning along major thoroughfares that forbids overly large parking lots, parking lots in front of (rather than behind) buildings and also bans single-story commercial buildings in favor of multi-story ‘mixed use’ buildings with residential on upper floors.
The net effect of this so far (after a couple of years) has been to preserve old commercial buildings in ‘non-conforming’ amber (no new projects have been built or even proposed), while the bad sort of development they don’t like proceeds apace in the surrounding townships. Ooops. They’ll figure it out eventually. Maybe.
Tony Jordan
Dec 2 2023 at 3:44pm
I’m not the biggest fan of parking maximums myself, but they are a far lesser sin than minimums. That said, the maximums in Ann Arbor are basically what the old minimums were, and generally developers rarely built above minimums. In several cases, the city allowed for a bit more parking than was previously required. In most cases it looks like you can still build a parking lot that is 1-3 times the size of the building it serves.
MarkW
Dec 3 2023 at 12:50pm
I’m not sure that parking maximums are better than minimums — I guess it depends on the actual numbers. But in our case, the maximums, along with the other requirements, seem to have prevented any new development from taking place. Instead of the imagined shiny high-density future being built along ‘transit corridors’, we’re seeing nothing happening at all, while there’s plenty of unrestricted suburban-style development continuing to happen in the townships outside the expressway ring (and outside city control). Developers seem to be voting with their feet.
David Henderson
Dec 3 2023 at 2:50pm
I’m not sure you got Tony Jordan’s point. I’ll put it in Econspeak. If the minimums in Ann Arbor were binding in all but rare cases, then making them into the maximums is a huge improvement. You say that it depends on the actual numbers. You’re right. But Tony gave enough treatment of the actual numbers that, if he’s right about them, he’s right about maxima being way less bad than minima, at least for Ann Arbor.
MarkW
Dec 4 2023 at 6:03am
I get it — I’m just not sure that the old minimums were binding. It seems that lots of time when a big-box developer builds what looks like an absurd ocean of parking in front of the main store this is because they want to do it, not because they’re forced to do it. The reason appears to be that they ultimately intend to develop the ‘out lots’ near the road for restaurants and smaller shops. Some of the formerly excess parking will then be taken by those buildings and the parking spaces way out in front will become the parking for the Outback steakhouse or Olive Garden or whatever. Aesthetically, I don’t love this, and we virtually never eat at those kinds places, but I also don’t think the local government should try to enforce preferences like mine, and this is a form of development that seems to ‘pencil out’. Requiring developers to put the main stores near the road, with residential units above and limiting the parking lot sizes would make this approach impossible. And where the ‘traditional’ big box development remains a live option just down the road on the way out of town, the developers can just focus their efforts there where the grass is (literally and figuratively) greener.
But obviously there are a number of factors — not just the old vs new zoning mandates, but also land-costs (higher inside the city) and tax rates (also higher inside the city) contributing to the pattern of development (or lack thereof).
David Henderson
Dec 4 2023 at 3:19pm
Mark W,
Fair enough. It’s true that I’m taking Tony Jordan’s word for it that the majority of such minimum mandates are binding. But I don’t know that.
Tony Jordan
Dec 5 2023 at 2:29pm
Mark, do you have some examples of where you think the maxima might be restricting development? I do think two things are worth considering:
I think Ann Arbor only made this change in August 2022. Cities take a long time to change and the impact of these reforms is far from immediate. No redevelopment in a year is not indicative of a failure or success of the policy.
if you look at the map where the Transit Corridor zoning applies, it seems to be places that are — for the most part — already developed with strip mall and big box architecture. it would seem the TC-1 zoning and parking maxima (which is a “standard” 1:333 ratio) would only encourage the type of parking lot redevelopment you propose.
More details and photography showing these zones is available at this presentation.
MarkW
Dec 6 2023 at 9:39am
I think Ann Arbor only made this change in August 2022. Cities take a long time to change and the impact of these reforms is far from immediate. No redevelopment in a year is not indicative of a failure or success of the policy.
No, it’s not a long amount of time, but development has been pretty active in Ann Arbor for a couple of decades and projects outside the new TC-1 areas (and outside the city) have been built or announced during the past year — this being the most recent one that comes to mind. This would not have been allowed in the TC-1 corridors. But maybe taxes and land costs are such that nobody would have wanted to put this in the city itself, anyway (all the car dealerships migrated out of the city long before any rules changed, for example).
it seems to be places that are — for the most part — already developed with strip mall and big box architecture
Well, yes, and perhaps fortunately, several of them underwent significant remodels/upgrades within the last ~10 years. Fortunately these projects were already done because, as I understand the TC-1 rules, they would not now be allowed now (at least not without having to win a variance).
it would seem the TC-1 zoning and parking maxima (which is a “standard” 1:333 ratio) would only encourage the type of parking lot redevelopment you propose.
I don’t believe single-story restaurants in ‘out lots’ would be allowed under the new rules either.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Dec 2 2023 at 11:33am
Behind (and this is not and excuse) for the idea of parking mandates is that otherwise clients of the new venue will increase scarcity of street parking for existing property holders. Of course, the proper solution to this is to eliminate free street parking with a system of time of day (if not fully dynamic) metering with rates set so that there is always epsilon slack. Current property holders who benefit from “free” parking could be compensated by giving them a share of the revenues from meters in their vicinity.
Failure to use Pigou taxation of externalities is a besetting sin of policy making in urban areas and in general.
Matthias
Dec 2 2023 at 9:32pm
I’m not sure what Pigovian taxation and externalitirs have to do with anything here?
Parking, just like bread or rental of housing, should be privatised, and then the owners can charge whatever they feel like.
Dynamic metering to leave an epsilon of slack might or might not be optimal. But that would for the private parking land lords to figure out. No need to involve the public sector.
Schep
Dec 3 2023 at 2:20am
I claim you must understand the externality and the transactions cost to see why parking minimums are so sticky. If a new property builds a site with a parking lot, it truly is an externality if the operator next door does not have a parking lot and so property 2 customers park in property 1’s lot.
City council members hate citizen complaints so they with planner experts set minimum for no complaints about parking. Experienced developers know all have to pay the parking lot cost with too much parking, so no one has a competitive advantage. Also considered is the high cost of separately paying and enforcement of parking charges. Therefore, too much parking lot continues.
Note also that the pigouvian tax creates a revenue stream in addition to the penalty that is easily siphoned off by an interest group with the incentive to perpetuate the parking problem.
I think there is an excessive amount of parking spaces to be efficient, but don’t expect planners and government to solve it. The incentives and transactions cost have to be addressed in markets for a real improvement.
Tony Jordan
Dec 3 2023 at 8:50pm
Exactly! The prescription for parking reform is to eliminate the mandates, manage curb space for availability with pricing, and invest revenues to improve access to the area (think better sidewalks, transit, lighting). Sharing revenue directly with existing businesses wouldn’t be my favored approach, but it might be acceptable as a phase in implementation.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Dec 2 2023 at 11:38am
I’d like to call attention to Tyler Cowen on the benefits of land use reform [I’m not enamoured of the term “YIMBY” which still sounds prescriptive] for commercial real estate, not just residential construction:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-30/the-yimby-movement-needs-to-go-commercial?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=twitter&sref=htOHjx5Y
robc
Dec 2 2023 at 12:40pm
One of the other sites I frequent is strongtowns.org.
Among other things, they work to eliminate parking mandates. Unfortunately, like MarkW mentioned, the primarily oppose minimums and some writers there support maximums. I take a position against maximums whenever I can.
Fortunately, minimums are the bigger problem, so focusing on them isnt too bad. Yet.
Richard Fulmer
Dec 2 2023 at 5:02pm
Nice example of unintended consequences.
Grand Rapids Mike
Dec 2 2023 at 10:16pm
Interesting. In Arlington Hts where I live, when a new structure goes up, zoning variances require the City Council approval. Frequently this involves the number of parking spaces. If the number of spaces is less than the zoning permits a justification is required for the variance, which is not always approved. In particular new residential housing (condos, apartments etc.) developers must make tradeoffs of number of units and parking spaces to ensure parking meets zoning requirements. The developers cannot count on street parking. In effect the street parking, where available in a residential area, is owned by the house on the lot.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Dec 3 2023 at 6:50am
My “proposal” rather formalizes the ownership and so reduces house owners’ opposition to new development since if it raises demand for street parking, they will benefit from higher parking fees.
robc
Dec 4 2023 at 10:35am
My preferred solution is eliminating parking mandates (min and max) and switching to a Land Value Tax (preferrably in the form of a Single Land Tax, but that is well outside the Overton window at this point) replacing Property Tax.
And eliminate all government owned parking (including street parking, I would deed those spaces over to the adjacent properties). In any case in which the best use of the property is for parking, parking will exist. A parking equilibrium will be reached, although it might take some time. If the changes were phased in, it would prevent chaos, but I am not opposed to some chaos now and again.
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