Parking Minimums Spawn Houses of Horror

Streetsblog has a fun new feature that involves readers submitting photos of “parking lots and garages that erode New York’s pedestrian realm.” The submission above, from Michael Kodransky, shows a new development in Bensonhurst: “To walk into the building, you have to pass through the surface lot that wraps it on two sides. The building faces West 3rd Street with a low, blank brick wall meant only to enclose the surface lot. With 24 ground-floor parking spaces for its 20 residential units, including all that parking was the developer’s prerogative. But even an enlightened builder wouldn’t have come up with something much better. The city required ten parking spaces, and the most cost-effective option is to put them on the ground floor.” The post also has a shot of a bunch of parking garages taking up most of the ground floor of a small Vinegar Hill development.
Pedestrian Burdens [Streetsblog]