Parking Minimums Downtown Being Reconsidered
The article itself is behind Rupert’s paywall, but information wants to be free so luckily StreetsBlog blogged yesterday Wall Street Journal piece on changes to the rules governing parking that the Department of City Planning is currently considering. In the article, a spokesperson for Council Member Stephen Levin is quoted as saying, “There is a…
The article itself is behind Rupert’s paywall, but information wants to be free so luckily StreetsBlog blogged yesterday Wall Street Journal piece on changes to the rules governing parking that the Department of City Planning is currently considering. In the article, a spokesperson for Council Member Stephen Levin is quoted as saying, “There is a movement afoot to eliminate or decrease the parking minimums.” The term “parking minimums” refers to the zoning rule that has required developers on new residential buildings in places like Downtown Brooklyn to create enough off-street parking to cover 40 to 50 percent of their units; projects like the Oro, Toren and Avalon, for example, have had to create hundreds of parking spots among them. Based on the article, it sounds like just about everybody, from Levin to the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership to the MetroTech BID, would be in favor of reducing them.
Movement Afoot to Drop Downtown B’klyn Parking Minimums [StreetsBlog]
Parking Industry Feels Under Attack [Wall Street Journal]
Oh, the joys of not owning a car!
The zoning requires off-street parking, but it doesn’t have to be free of charge.
I’d be happy to see the zoning get rid of minimum and maximum parking limits. Let the developer provide as much parking as they perceive the market to demand, and let them charge for it what they will.
I’d also be fine with charging for overnight parking, through the sale of monthly resident passes as well as one-time passes for whoever else wants them.
Gasoline taxes offset, to some extent, the cost of a moving car’s occupancy of public road space, so something similar should be implemented so that stationary cars using a public resource are allocated some of that cost.
I suspect that most people who do own cars in the city probably mainly use them to leave.
etson, I wasnt being serious.
I don’t think there are enuf spaces in LIRR lots as it is for the commuters.
“Pete, that’s rare – ie maybe at most 2% of the residents of these towers. they walk, bike, or take subway”
For commuiting maybe but car ownership in general is much higher. When I lived in “towers” in Manhattan, would estimate it was more like 20-30%. At my BK building (not a tower) it’s 40%. Not sure if downtown BK is any different.
it is a diminishing resource, etson…with all those new bike lanes.
Pete — Parking permits are, indeed, annoying. But so are the tens of thousands of cars that are ILLEGAL — i.e., registered and (maybe) insured in various other states… Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, etc.
It would also take care of all the gripes of the “outer borough” folks that say congestion pricing would make their neighborhood in Queens a commuter parking lot. They couldn’t park there — they would have to park in the LIRR commuter lot.
Pete, that’s rare – ie maybe at most 2% of the residents of these towers. they walk, bike, or take subway