San Francisco Contemplates Something St. Louis May Never
St. Louis loves parking. Surface parking lots, new parking garages where historic buildings once graced the streetscape, and parking within warehouses being converted to lofts.
Land values in San Francisco make surface parking lots an economic impossibility. But as dense as San Francisco is, those crazy California’s love their cars as much or more than we do in the midwest. In an effort to reduce car use the city’s Board of Supervisors is considering a drastic measure.
From the San Francisco Examiner:
Proposed legislation that would limit the amount of off-street parking built in new housing was endorsed by the majority of the Planning Commission on Thursday. But the commission recommended the legislation be amended to allow for more parking than currently proposed.
The legislation, sponsored by Supervisor Chris Daly, intends to reduce downtown congestion, promote walkable streets and lower the cost of housing.
The commission on Thursday recommended a maximum of three parking spots for every four units of new housing downtown, while Daly’s legislation calls for one spot for every two units. The legislation would also ban freestanding parking garages downtown.
Yes, San Francisco’s urban-minded supervisors want to restrict the number of parking spaces in downtown residential developments. Keep in mind that San Francisco is far more dense than St. Louis with over twice the number of people per square mile. The downtown resident in San Francisco has many more choices for mass transit along with goods and services within walking distance.
Existing warehouses in downtown St. Louis have a parking limit of sorts — the buildings will only accommodate so much indoor parking. Thus, many downtown loft developments end up with one space per unit. But we are already seeing a point where all the old buildings have been purchased for development. This means we’ll soon see new buildings filling in the vacant gaps around the edges of downtown. With these new buildings may come the call for two spaces per unit.
So while San Francisco is debating 2-3 spaces for every four units we may see 8 spaces for every four units. At this rate, we may never encourage more walking, biking or mass transit use while pricing units beyond the means of many. I’d like to see a cap of say 6 parking spaces for every four units. We could trigger some incentives such as building higher (more units = more $) if parking is reduced to one space per unit. Thinking ahead we should set progressively tighter parking restrictions published well in advance.
So let’s assume we, in the next year or two, impose a limit of six spaces for four units with bonus hight incentives for a 1:1 ratio. Five years later the regular limit might become five spaces for four units with incentives for three spaces for every four units. Another fives years could see this drop again.
– Steve
1. Denver’s residential parking standard has been 1½ spaces per unit for years, like you’re proposing, and it’s worked well, even in downtown loft conversions.
2. In many of Denver’s loft projects, the parking spaces are sold separately (±$20,000 per space), which puts a real price on parking, and they still sell out.
3. Some Denver loft developers have taken to offering “free” scooters in lieu of parking spaces (they still need to meet the overal 1½:1 ratio per building). This allows the typical urban yuppie couple to continue to have two vehicles to get around, but they only need 1.1 parking space to do it – seems to work.
4. Less than one parking space per unit makes for more difficult sales (and resales), especially in the urban core where on-street parking is essentially unavailble. It’s a more viable option for rental units and senior housing, where personal mobility is constrained by finances and/or infirmity.
Bottom line, 1½ spaces per unit sounds like a great idea. Even 1¼ spaces per unit may be viable.
[REPLY – To be clear I was discussing a maximum number of spaces, not a minimum. If a developer wants to build a building with zero spaces I say fine. Of course, that would never happen. We need to limit the total spaces. – SLP]
Citizens for Modern Transit hopes to support transit use and the need for fewer spaces with a car sharing program. If all goes well, we will have a pilot program up and running next summer in the downtown area. Hopefully, it will create enough interest to spread to the Central West End, the Loop and perhaps one of the campuses.
How would this program lower the cost of housing?
You want to hear an original idea to mitigate San Francisco’s terrible parking situation?
One person suggested allowing “on street” parking, and I mean *real* on street parking-
in traffic lanes. Or, going one step further, during off peak hours, closing entire blocks to through traffic to be used as parking lots, in order to allow persons living within certain designated areas to park their cars overnight in these zones.
Leave a lane for emergency vehicles, and then why not? It’s cheaper than building parking structures, and creates thousands of new parking spaces. Now there’s an idea you won’t find in any zoning code!
If you’ve seen what’s happened with parking in San Francisco over the past thirty years, you might support this idea.
[REPLY – How would this lower the cost of housing? Easy. It is estimated that parking spaces in current downtown lofts add about $15,000 to the price of each unit. On a $400K loft that isn’t such a big deal but if you are trying to make unit available for $150K then that becomes a large percentage. In new buildings it might be conceivable that a space costs $20,000.
Look at it this way: That $20K space means about $134/month plus property taxes and condo fees. Some say the buyers could lease the space to others in the building but that is assuming they could qualify for the higher loan in the first place. Many could not.
As far as parking on the street that is just crazy talk. That assumes these people all will be getting in their car to drive off to work during the day. The whole point of being in an urban area is to not have to use a car. The car becomes one of many possible transportation choices. – SLP]
While it sounds great, I am not sure how feasable it is. On one hand I think the people who are moving to lofts downtown are ready to accept that they may not have 3 parking spots for their 1 unit. On the other hand it may be required to get people in the county to be interested in lofts downtown, especially now that the market seems to be peaking or flattening out with interest rates rising. Paying for spots is a great idea. Have 1 per unit with the option for a second at a price. I dont think the biggest issue here though is with living units, but with office units. The majority of parking is either for stadium events or employess who work downtown. Don’t the owners of the existing surface lots and garages realize that if they work to help reduce the number of additional garages downtown they can raise the cost of what they charge? Supply and demand. They would probably get paid to operate the new garage anyway so what do they care?
Jason
“On the other hand it may be required to get people in the county to be interested in lofts downtown, especially now that the market seems to be peaking or flattening out with interest rates rising.”
That may be the condition of the greater real estate market but I have seen NO effect on the demand for lofts/condos downtown. From all reports it is still hot as ever.
“Or, going one step further, during off peak hours, closing entire blocks to through traffic to be used as parking lots, in order to allow persons living within certain designated areas to park their cars overnight in these zones.
Leave a lane for emergency vehicles, and then why not? It’s cheaper than building parking structures, and creates thousands of new parking spaces. Now there’s an idea you won’t find in any zoning code!”
Once or twice, I’ve actually seen this done in Downtown StL on weekends during events, though I’m not sure it was legal.
I don’t like the idea of closing entire blocks for parking, esp. if we’re talking about Downtown, which is already a mess in terms of street grid. Streets are closed off, and we’ve got all that weird one-way business. I think on-street parking is important and that we really don’t need that many lanes for traffic, but…. Downtown is already pretty dead when it’s not M-F 9-5, so why take a step to make it less navigable and normal during those off-peak hours? The last thing we need for people who are already bemoaning their inability to find a place to eat Downtown after 8PM is for them to walk from closed restaurant to closed restaurant and see that a city street is being used as a parking lot. Downtown doesn’t have that much traffic, but let’s respect places that are trying to make it more of a 24/7 kind of place (like the art galleries, the City Museum, Maurizio’s, and my workplace, City Grocers) by making sure people can still get to them in the evenings and on the weekends. Parking in the middle of the street Downtown would be suited to Detroit a decade ago, not St. Louis now.
Back on the original topic of the post, one solution for people who “can’t” downsize to one car is to get a lift (Like this: http://www.lanzoni.com/tecniinx2.htm), so you can park one car over the other in one spot. (This assumes that you have a regular spot inside of a building.) It’s a little extra money and work, but it’s very space efficient. Some residents of the 10th Street Lofts use these already.
Great topic Steve!
When I was in San Francisco to attend the National Planning Conference I was amazed at the street vitality and the presence of cars everywhere! Californians like their cars too, but it’s expensive and inconvenient. I agree that Downtown St. Louis should impose parking restrictions and trade more floors or give incentives to encourage alternative transportation. Bikes, scooters. I ride my bike almost daily to classes and to downtown Springfield which is easy to get to with neighborhoods that connect to it (low car traffic).
Time was when you could usually find a street parking space in SF within a block or two of your address. That ended sometime in the early to mid-nineties.
Not sure why-maybe the dot.com boom, or more yuppies moving into SF. The population didn’t increase, but the number of cars sure did.
My mom was a SF city resident without a car from about 1969 through 1993. The whole time she lived there, she never owned one. We rode Muni all over the city. She rode it daily to and from work.
But still, most folks, especially the younger ones, seemed to have one or more cars, often just so they could get out of the city.
The parking situation in San Francisco is out of control, with demand far outstripping supply, and obviously the reason they are considering such drastic measures.