Parking Might Reduce Tax Revenue
For decades St. Louis has torn down building after building to make room for increasing amounts of parking, our zoning sets minimum parking requirements for most of the city. Many would argue this is necessary to keep up with the times, but new research discovers this may result in negative consequences:
“In the ’50s and ’60s, cities did things like subsidize garage parking, and they condemned buildings so the lots could be used for parking,” says Norman Garrick, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Connecticut. Many, he adds, still require a minimal number of parking spots to be added for each new development. But it turns out that all the parking doesn’t pay off.
A pair of forthcoming studies by Garrick and several of his UConn colleagues examine the economic and sociological impacts of parking trends in six U.S. cities from 1960 to 2000. They conclude that some car-centric cities forfeit more than a thousand dollars per parking space per year in potential municipal revenues by using land for parking rather than more lucrative alternatives. The researchers also found that minimum parking requirements inhibit development and exacerbate traffic by placing incentives on car use rather than on walking and cycling. (Businessweek: American Cities Are Haunted by Too Many Parking Spaces)
I’ve download the studies from the 2014 Transportation Research Board’s 93rd annual meeting, but I haven’t had a chance to read the full list yet. I’ve scanned the paper referenced above, the title is:
THE EFFECTS OF URBAN FABRIC CHANGES ON REAL ESTATE PROPERTY TAX 2 REVENUE: EVIDENCE FROM SIX AMERICAN CITIES
The conclusion was “a substantial consequence of parking consuming a large proportion of land in cities is the loss of significant amounts of potential tax revenue.”
— Steve Patterson
I have not read the papers and I agree that, short term, tearing down buildings and replacing them with surface parking likely results in less tax revenue. But having watched downtown Denver for the past 40 years, I’m going to disagree with it as an absolute conclusion or outcome. When I arrived in Denver in the 1970’s, many blocks of their downtown had been torn down, thanks to “urban renewal”, and converted to surface parking. However, over the past four decades, nearly all of that land, along with a large, adjacent rail yard, have been redeveloped and occupied by multi-story structures, many with privately-financed, internal parking structures. Tax revenues are much higher, now, with more intensive uses, than with either surface parking lots or the prior, lower-density uses.
For density to work well, you need a combination of both good public transit options and on- and off-street parking. Blaming surface parking for St. Louis’ current malaise is an oversimplification. Losing two-thirds of our population over the past fifty years has had a much bigger impact in reducing tax revenues and in creating vacant buildings than surface parking lots. Parking lots are more the symptom than the cause – if other uses will generate greater revenues, there really is no argument for keeping them.
Sure, Denver redeveloped what had been surface parking in the past.
We might not have lost 62.8% of our population if we hadn’t ripped up the city for urban renewal’s highways, surface parking, wider roads, public housing projects, etc. Even after doing all that we failed to look at how to rebuild where we lost fabric.
When I moved to St, Louis in 1990 the population was just under 400,000, in 1980 is was over 452,000.
Continuing down the “more parking, more roads” path but expecting a different outcome is insanity. We know from the 2010 Census the areas of St. Louis that saw increases are the more urban areas in downtown, nearby north & south, central corridor.
And today the city’s population is 318,416! Between 1990 and 2014, how much in the way of “highways, surface parking, wider roads, public housing projects, etc.” have resulted in demolition and how much demolition has been a result of outright population loss?! Are buildings being torn down because they’re just vacant / too expensive to maintain / falling down? Or, are they being torn down just to provide parking?
Much like your post from yesterday, the reason you have surface parking next to your loft is that the building burned down and there was no financial reason to rebuild it, then or now. People don’t tear down buildings because they love surface parking, they tear down buildings (or build structured parking instead of surface parking, at much greater cost) because it makes the most financial sense to do so. My point was that surface parking went away from many blocks in downtown Denver because many people were and are demanding to live and work there.
Until there is significantly more demand for new housing, more office space and more retail in downtown St. Louis, surface parking will, unfortunately, continue to make the most financial sense (even as a place holder) – see Ball Park Village for one big example. Surface parking is NOT the highest and best use when land values are rising, but it makes a whole lot of sense when they’re stagnant or falling. (And no, making it a park / leaving it vacant, while maybe more aesthetically appealing, makes even less financial sense!)
The problem isn’t our zoning, the problem is our local economy . . . .
No more tearing down buildings! No more surface parking! Enough is enough. Parking should be in parking garages, or underground parking. Underground parking is expensive, but well worth it as a LONG TERM SOLUTION. But of course, would people actually think of long term solutions??? ……
Most commercial blocks in the City of St. Louis are large enough that parking could easily be placed behind and, in most cases, completely hidden by street-facing buildings. For whatever reason though, here and elsewhere, developers want a wide front-facing parking surface. Consumer psychology, I guess — if you see a place to park, you’re more likely to park there?
The City’s parking minimum requirement comes down to, like several other issues, an inability (or unwillingness) to modernize the municipal code. Too often, the City considers its land availability a liability rather than an asset. They kowtow to developers’ individual desires when they should be demanding a cohesive, forward-looking plan.
Some neighborhoods have enacted their own guiding principles — historic, form-based or other. It’s no surprise, really, that those are the ones seeing the most investment and vibrancy. Developers actually appreciate knowing their limitations and allowances. For whatever reason though, the City is hesitant to set that overarching plan or make those demands.