Should We Eliminate Parking Requirements in Mixed Use Centers?
Over the last few months we have sat in on several joint meetings of the Tacoma City Council and the Planning Commission as they discussed the Commissions recommendations for the future of our city’s mixed use centers. One of the recommendations that has been put forward is the elimination of off-street parking requirements in certain areas of the centers. In effect, let the market decide how much parking is needed for new developments in Proctor, McKinley, Fern Hill, South Tacoma, etc, etc. Of course, this is already an active discussion with regard to the downtown International Financial Services Area (IFSA).
So, should it become the rule in the mixed-use centers as well?
The Planning Commission seems to think so. However, a memo sent yesterday by City Manager Eric Anderson to the City Council doesn’t show the same level of enthusiasm.
… it is my understanding that this recommendation was developed to remove a perceived barrier to development and to incent investment, to support alternative transportation options including transit, walking and cycling and to move the City toward an approach to address parking supply based upon market demands.
Although these are all worthwhile objectives which I fully support, I am concerned about putting this change in place before the City has had an opportunity to develop all of the tools to address potential impacts. Before the code’s requirements for off-street parking are removed, it is important that a comprehensive strategy for parking be developed for the centers. This strategy, at a minimum, should include mechanisms to address enforcement, management of on-street parking spaces, improvements to transit facilities and services, street and sidewalk improvements to facilitate trasnportation choices and a means to address concerns for the provision of accessible parking stalls for people with disabilities.
As I have mentioned previously, it is my intent to use the proposed elimination of the parking requirements in the downtown International Financial Services Area (IFSA) as a pilot to test the impacts and effect that the loss of a mandated City requirement has on parking supply and demand. The IFSA is a much smaller geography and several concurrent initiatives to address parking needs and alternative transit options are already underway.
Expanding the elimination of parking requirements beyond the IFSA to sixteen mixed-use centers is premature until we can evaluate the results of the IFSA pilot project. The Commission’s recommendations certainly have merit; however, I caution the Council in enacting this proposal when City resources are not available to fully implement the recommendation. The result could have adverse impacts on the center and immediate neighborhood that were not intended or contemplated.
This memo has gotten a few friends rather riled up already. Should we wait? Should we make the changes now? The next joint meeting is on Tuesday. Plus, there’s a public hearing that evening on the issue. Both should be interesting …
Filed under: General
21 comments
C Chris K June 24, 2009
Yes. Get rid of the requirements now. Give the market the signal that they will no longer be constrained by ignorant fifty year old suburban-biased land use policy that makes it impossible to develop good mixed use buildings on small lots (see Luzon building versus Rainier Pacific Building).
Other modes of transport will benefit from fewer driveways and cars on the road in the future. This would be a good step in the right direction.
We still need complete (and repaired) streets and a bicycle network and streetcars and Bus Rapid Transit and a parking management system for Downtown and for the mixed use districts – but seriously, not much development is happening right now. We have time to put some of these management systems in place before things start to pick up again.
Send the market the signal that they can build what makes sense.
T T-town June 24, 2009
YES!
R RR Anderson June 24, 2009
to save humanity, men must first be husked of their steel and glass 3000 pound wheelchairs. removing parking is a good first step.
T TacomAroma June 24, 2009
Yes, yes, yes! Get rid of the parking requirements.
J Jesse June 24, 2009
I lived directly across the street from The Hub at the Miller for a while. Although my GF and I really couldn’t go anyplace on a Friday or Saturday night with the car because there’d be no parking when we got home. I remember driving around for up to 1/2 hour before we got a spot anywhere remotely close by as the clients for the Hub wouldn’t go and park in the church parking lot like they were supposed to but rather grab a spot on the street which was the only place a resident could park. I’d bitch about the parking problem outloud but I was seriously happy at the progress to the neighborhood The Hub brought and wouldn’t have it any other way. Progress is good. Business is good.
If they are so skitish on parking in mixed use areas where there are more people/apartments/condos than shops, perhaps signs with parking zoning would be a good idea? Like pay $15 a year to get a tag and signage in the area with some open parking for enough business patrons and the rest zoned and signed for the people/residents with tags. —-> A good /ticket revenue stream for the city as well I guess? Beyond that, if the area needs more parking, let the market hammer it out.
But, the parking requirement downtown is an attrocious idea. Downtowns should be made for PEOPLE not cars. If you want to be able to go everywhere in your car and be able to park, go to the (culture-sucking) suburban mall.
N Nick June 24, 2009
Nice post Jesse – I agree 100%.
I can see Eric Anderson’s point, and certainly it would be prudent to look before we leap on any dramatic policy change. However, we need not rely on ‘pilots’ within city limits to see the effects of removing a parking requirement.
Looking outside Tacoma, we can observe a good number of municipalities that have already enacted similar changes. Tacoma is not an isolated island, we have next-door neighbors that have already made this change with relatively positive results. All it takes is a little due diligence and some communication to find out if it will work. All signs seem to point to YES.
T Thorax O'Tool June 25, 2009
DUH
D David Boe June 25, 2009
The planning commission was charged two years ago by the city council to review and ammend the mixed-use center zoning regulations to remove the barriers to development – as little NEW building development has happened in the mixed-use centers the past 10 years (even with tax breaks). After many meetings, public hearings, consultant reports, and alike, it now is apparent that the greatest barrier to ecomonic development in our mixed-use centers is the suburban mentality still prevalent with 747 Market Street.
D Dan June 25, 2009
I cannot understand why this is taking so long. The parking policies are a major barrier to the economic development that the City claims to seek, and they have been talking about it for years – and yet from Eric Anderson’s memo it sounds as though they are hardly any closer to knowing how to proceed. Policies can be changed, take away what we have and try something new. It may not be perfect but that does not mean it cannot be tweaked later. When a city takes multiple years to decide on a policy change they begin to assume that a change must be long term, but that’s only because they have bought into the idea that subsequent changes cannot occur without multiple years of deliberation. Do Something…Anything!
J jamie from thriceallamerican June 25, 2009
It’s nice to see some movement in this direction… Seems pretty obvious at this point that the city needs to make the paradigm shift towards considering pedestrian concerns first. Anybody tried to cross 6th Ave at Pine St on the way to the Farmers Market? Push the button…wait….wait some more…a crowd gathers…cars whiz by…even bigger crowd…finally a cross signal, minutes later! As far as I’m concerned, once I press the cross button in what should be a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, things should go into motion for the light cycle to change in my favor, cars be damned. Traffic flow should be the last concern in designing our neighborhoods, if people want to drive quickly through Tacoma they can get on the freeway.
D DavidS June 25, 2009
once I press the cross button in what should be a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, things should go into motion for the light cycle to change in my favor, cars be damned
Amen! We’ve got it in place for the yellow flashers that are supposed to stop traffic for pedestrians, is it really so hard to have the actual stop signals in our MUCs do the same thing? I hope this becomes part of the MUC complete streets package the City is working on right now.
D David Koch June 25, 2009
@5: How about we get rid of these parking requirements then in neighborhoods adjacent to commercial areas we have parking permit zones. Without the permit zones business owners will have no reason to supply parking and residents will have to fight for access to their homes. Actually, any neighborhood that currently has a problem like this could probably just address the issue with the city council and have a residential parking permit system set up.
J Jesse June 25, 2009
@12: That’s what I am suggesting. However, there should be no parking requirements in the BIA.
D David Koch June 26, 2009
@13 Duh! I’m stupid! I bothered to respond to your post without reading the whole thing. I just repeated what you said. I apologize =)
T Thorax O'Tool June 26, 2009
A heavy-handed, city-dictated approach failed even when a credit and building orgy like no other witnessed is history held our nation in a hizzy for a decade…
Hm. Definitely an issue with our Fearless Leaders at 747 Market.
I know! Why not try a little laissez faire action? Let developers go wild. I mean, it’s not like the city’s current approach is working much better.
J J. Cote June 28, 2009
I must not be reading this correctly. Are you actually advocating that I will need to pay for a permit to park in front of my own home just because we don’t DARE have a developer provide parking for what he builds?
Why do you think nobody shops Downtown? It’s overdeveloped and there’s no place to park.
Are you actually advocating the development of the Proctor area into five story structures with NO REQUIREMENTS on the developers to provide parking for what they build? Where are all these people going to park, Mason Middle School? Maybe the Methodist Church can lease out their parking since they only need the bulk of it on Sundays. If there is no parking provided, how are employees and customers supposed to get there? Buses that are inconvenient, bicycles that don’t work well with my cane and my broken body,or streetcars that don’t exist and never will?
There is very little room for development in Tacoma without tearing down and changing something that already exists. Tacoma’s mixed use centers don’t need more development. They need parking. Taking away the requirement to provide it only takes the developer off the hook for providing the required parking for his development. If the code is archaic, then update it. Don’t eliminate it altogether.
Imagine if when they built the Tacoma Mall and there was no requirement for parking?. Would it be as successful? Would we require shoppers to bus to the mall do do their Christmas shopping?
This is one issue that the Council had better study hard before they all shout “Aye”.
D David Koch June 28, 2009
@16: They way I recall these parking permits working is each household will get a couple without charge (unless they apply for more). Residents can usually also request free visitor passes for when they have friends visiting or have an event. This means places like churches or office buildings would be forced to provide parking because visitors would have limited access to parking in adjacent neighborhoods. This also means that businesses wouldn’t be required to provide parking they don’t need so would only have to provide as much parking as needed to fill demand.
Summary: Residents won’t pay for their permits nor be forced off their streets by consumers/workers. Businesses won’t be given the extra financial and spacial burden of providing useless parking.
If I missed something, let me know.
S Sandy June 28, 2009
I have not yet been delivered of my 3000lb wheelchair as I have found it useful to haul kids, groceries, artwork, and other stuff heavier than my personal body weight around; so I pay to maintain a fuel efficient vehicle. You know what I would LOVE though? I would love a discounted limited bus pass (just route #1 would be ideal for me)for those times I’m not hauling stuff/folks. I struggle with justifying the full cost of a monthly bus pass as well as the cost of maintaining my vehicle, so I have not gone that route as yet. With a discounted limited bus pass, I would consider it.
B Brian June 29, 2009
OK, ease the parking requirements but offset them with an alternative investment to the city’s public transportation infrastructure.
Developers are not always as intelligent as their ambtions might want us to assume. Offer them a loophole to avoid paying for the parking to bring customers to their storefronts and they will exercise this option even if there is no plan in place to bring customers in by other means.
Tacoma needs an ambitious plan for better public transportation and it needs funding. Give developers a choice to build parking lots/structures or invest in the alternative tranpsortation infruastructure and I think they will opt to invest in transit (basically this allows them to utilize more of the available space for more profitable uses).
I don’t favor lifting the requirements 100% or even to the same degree city-wide. Suburban centers would probably only tolerate a 20% decrease while downtown could perhaps handle a 50-70% reduction in parking if light-rail comes online soon enough (said as I shop for a garage downtown).
D Douglas Tooley June 30, 2009
John Olson cites a stat that in Pierce County each new suburban home has a total subsidy of 96,000 when the costs of all new infrastructure is factored in.
Perhaps the County should be ponying up for parking on these in-city developments requiring no new infrastructure?
J J. Cote July 4, 2009
@17: Thank you, Mr. Koch for clearing it up.
It looks like it will be a major PIA to start such a program AND to enforce it. I realize that parking is a major headache in all of the retail centers. While some of the things mentioned sound good, it’s just hard to see it happening in any short time frame.