San Francisco cuts parking demand

The movement toward eliminating excessive parking requirements scored a victory this summer when San Francisco adopted new regulations for downtown. Mayor Gavin Newsom signed an ordinance that gets rid of all minimum parking requirements for residential development downtown. Previously downtown developers had to supply one parking space for every four housing units. For the first time, San Francisco has imposed a cap on how many spaces a developer may supply: three spaces for every four units, as of right. A limited number of additional spaces are allowed by conditional use under certain circumstances. Parking must now be sold or leased separately from residential units, so a resident can choose to have as little — or as much — parking as is wanted. Until the ordinance took effect, parking typically was “bundled” into the cost of housing, raising the price of housing by an estimated 20 percent per unit per space, whether residents wanted the parking or not, says Jeffrey Tumlin, a principal at NelsonNygaard Consulting Associates in San Francisco. Opponents of such bundling felt it encouraged people to own as many cars as they owned parking spaces, exacerbating the city’s traffic congestion. Unbundling could make housing more affordable in a city that is rated one of the most expensive in America. Above-ground parking is essentially banned, the same as in Vancouver, British Columbia. The legislation grants specific exemptions for projects that have contaminated soils, geotechnical problems, or subway tunnels beneath them. In those cases, parking may be built above ground but it must be entirely wrapped with active uses such as retail. Curb cuts have been made harder to obtain on primary transit, bicycle, and pedestrian streets. Throughout San Francisco, the ordinance requires one bike parking space for every two housing units. Tumlin says the legislation is designed to increase housing production downtown by encouraging more and smaller units, by reducing construction costs, and by cooling the demand for the highest-end units. Well-off buyers “tend to demand lots of parking,” he observes. At least in theory, the legislation will encourage automobile-dependent households to live in locations that better accommodate cars and will help non-driving households to afford to live where transit services are at their best. Similar legislation is now pending for transit-oriented neighborhoods in San Francisco and Seattle.