People love free parking. So rather than try to fight existing homeowners about the issue, I propose we give them what they want.
Background
Seattle has a history of listening to neighbors before making any changes or allowing new buildings. We have a design review process for larger buildings, where the community is allowed to comment and a design review board can require changes to a proposed building in exchange for relaxing certain requirements. We have parking minimums, especially in residential areas. Politicians have scaled back the type of housing you can build, added strict requirements to micro-housing, stepped back from proposing corner stores, and have made many other changes under pressure from existing homeowners.
In fact, 65% of Seattle has been saved for single-family homes while you can only build multi-family housing (apartments, condos, even townhouses) on just 11% of our land. Why do existing homeowners resist any rule that allows more people to live here, as well as fight many projects that fully comply with the law? There are many reasons, but I propose the main one is parking.
There are many real effects of new dense housing near existing homes. On the positive side these include more demand for local retail, a better chance of getting new transit service, a more active sidewalk, more neighbors to interact with if you choose, and more children for your children to play with. The negative impacts include more traffic, loss of views, less sunlight (assuming the building is directly adjacent to yours), and less free parking*.
Neighbors that fight development don’t often own up to the lack of parking as their motivation, but in my experience it’s a strong motivator. And this is understandable — fair or not, most every single-family home comes with a few subsidized free car storage spaces at the curb. True, they don’t belong to that homeowner, but they certainly benefit from those spaces. Adding neighbors can take this valuable amenity away.
Proposal
Let’s choose our battles, and just agree to lose this one. Let’s take every non-restricted, non-metered parking space in the city and hand them to the existing landowners in the form of a parking permit. Tie these permits to the block that property is on, and base the number of permits on the amount of curb space available in front of their home. Charge a small annual fee to both administer this program and pay for maintaining this pavement and for some transit. Set up a parking spot trading system where residents can sell or lease their permit to others. Those without permits can only park for a limited time, which could be set based on demand.
Sure, this is unfair to future residents that don’t get a parking permit. But removing this incentive to fight development could launch us forward into providing more homes. Neighbors might start to see the benefits of density and not just the negatives.
In addition, this would place a price on parking. Not directly, but through the trading market. Those that would consider giving up their cars would now have a financial incentive to do so. Those that really need to drive and park on the street will have a market to buy that right.
* Perhaps less school space as well, but over time that evens out as we have more people to tax for this and other infrastructure. There’s also an argument to be made that higher density brings higher crime, but
I dispute that claim.
