Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

Yet another town moves from parking minimums to maximums with no stop in between

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Despite its ridiculously biased opening sentence (“Fairfax County residents will have a harder time finding a free parking space in some neighborhoods if transportation planners get their way”), the Washington Post actually has a relatively informative article on potential new parking maximums in Fairfax County, Virginia. Essentially they want to do what a lot of smart growth-enthralled planners want to do: replace their parking minimums with maximums.

Under current ordinances, new townhouses must have at least 2.75 parking spaces per dwelling. Under the draft recommendations, parking would be limited to 1.75 spaces per dwelling in a townhouse development less than a quarter-mile from a Metro station or 2.5 spaces per dwelling if the townhouse were located one-fourth of a mile to a half-mile from the station. Parking at commercial developments would be reduced from 2.6 parking spaces per 125,000 square feet of space to 2.1 if less than a quarter-mile from the Metro and to two spaces less than a half-mile away.

Ignoring that last sentence, which I’ll get back to in a minute, this is pretty much the standard planner’s bias – move directly from parking minimums to parking maximums, without, oh, I don’t know, maybe just eliminating the centrally-planned parking regulations altogether?? This is one of the reasons that it’s very hard for libertarians and conservatives to get onboard with recent planning trends: the planners go from car-forcing to car-forbidding, skipping over entirely the obvious intermediate step of just letting people choose for themselves how car- or transit-oriented they want their lives to be.

There was also this interesting fact:

Yet the number of jurisdictions in the United States that impose parking maximums on developers is still perhaps fewer than 50, Rathbone said.

For all the anti-smart growth rhetoric we hear about the planners coming to take away our parking, only fifty measly jurisdictions have maximums, compared to, by my conservative estimate, 95% which have parking minimums.

But finally, I think the article doesn’t do a great job distinguishing between the arguments against parking minimums and the arguments in favor of parking maximums. They cite Shoup and imply that he would be in favor of the plan, despite the fact that, to my knowledge, he does not support parking maximums – this only fuels the false claims of people like Randal O’Toole. Similarly, in that last sentence (part of which I think must be an error – why would the county allow 2.1 spaces close to stations but only 2 farther away from them?), they state the previous numbers and the proposed new numbers as if they are the same metric, even though there’s a big difference between not allowing less than one number and not allowing more than another number.

While I’m against both mandating and limiting parking, I have to reluctantly admit that, if I were forced to make the choice (as it looks like Fairfax County will be), I would take the parking maximums – I feel like they would be less restrictive to developers. (Randal O’Toole has claimed in the past that parking minimums rarely even matter since developers would build parking even in their absence, so I assume he’d make the opposite choice if he had to.) It’s a shame that anybody has to make that choice, but them’s the breaks – you can have one kind of statism or another, but you can’t do away with it entirely.

  • I feel that the subsidy deck is so stacked in favor of driving that some heavy-handed statism may be necessary to counter the heavy-handed road and gas subsidies.

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  • Stephen, you say in one paragraph that libertarians can’t get on board with various planning trends, but then you say you’d reluctantly support this policy. This is a textbook example of why hardline libertarian commentators can’t be taken too seriously – they are far too attached to their principles and often fail to realize or acknowledge that governing is far more pragmatic by nature. Likewise, planning (despite the rhetoric of those opposed to it) is very much a political process, not an autocratic one.

    The difference between this particular reform and the completely free-market approach is that this reform actually stands a chance of being implemented, while the complete de-regulation of parking space requirements is likely dead on arrival.

    I’d also echo Cap’n Transit’s comment that the deck is already tilted so far in favor of cars and parking, particularly in a place like Fairfax County, that your free market policy wouldn’t produce a truly free market outcome – we’re too far down the auto subsidy path in this case.

    Likewise, I’d also note that even the reduced parking maximum levels, 1.75 spaces per dwelling unit for townhomes within 1/4 mile of a Metro station is still a lot of parking. Obviously, developers can come in under that if they like (the beauty of minimums in the first place), but if they chose to build at the max they’re still providing a lot of off-street parking.

  • Chris

    I’ve never understood the focus on maximums being placed on a per-unit basis. The approach that should be used (and I think you’d favor, Stephen), is to place maximums on a per-lot basis, by determining what the current street capacity is and the effects on increased numbers of cars (on congestion, transit, pedestrians, etc). That is, instead of determining how many units can be built and how many parking spots are allowed per unit, simply figure out the bulk of the building allowed (height, setbacks, etc) and the number of parking spots allowed for the lot.

    This would be the market-based way of doing things, as you completely detach the number of units from the number of parking spots. If a developer decides that his lot that has an allowance of 50 parking spots only need 40 parking spots and 40 units, go for it. If he decides on the maximum 50 parking spots, but wants 100 units, go for it. 50 parking spots and 10 units? Go for it. As long as parking has a significant effect on existing street capacity and the existing users of the streets, maximums absolutely make sense (it’s the reason why the telecoms might install extra infrastructure and charge you more if you decided to tie in a server farm to their network at your house), but tying the maximums to the number of units is outdated thinking.

  • I’m curious, why do you think that going from minimums to maximums is the only politically palatable move? If maximums are controversial because people want parking, then wouldn’t no regulation at all be a happy medium – enough reform to satisfy the anti-car planners, but not so much that you anger the car-based constituencies? From where I’m sitting, parking maximums is what’s DOA.

    As for 1.75 being a lot of space, I’m wont to agree – like I said, I doubt many developers really want to build much more than that anyway. That having been said, planners going in and capping the amount of parking is not going to go over well with a lot of people, as the first line of the Post article suggests.

  • The fact that a max of 1.75 spaces per unit is why the maximum is more palatable. That’s still a lot of parking. Installing a maximum is really just a theoretical exercise – the level that maximum is set to is the real discussion.

    Likewise, I don’t know how you’d convince elected officials who are listening to squeaky wheel residents complaining about congestion and parking and pollution that no regulation is a good thing. Even if you make the theoretical case for it, the practical argument – the political argument – is a much more complex transaction.

    It’s not about the developers, it’s about the constituents. I don’t mean to say that they are right (I think they’re quite wrong, actually), but they’re nonetheless in the ear of their elected officials, demanding that they ‘fix’ something they perceive to be a problem.

  • Leo

    Great article one thing I don’t get is if there are arguments for both parking minimums and maximums why wouldn’t proponents of this sort of urban planning argue for both rather than exactly one?

  • Anonymous

    From the article: “Parking at commercial developments would be reduced from 2.6 parking spaces per 125,000 square feet of space to 2.1 if less than a quarter-mile from the Metro and to two spaces less than a half-mile away.”

    Can someone fact-check this? That seems way too low to me. I’d almost expect parking to approach 1 space per thousand square feet, or even more, for most suburban developments.

  • Anonymous

    As far as minimums and maximums are concerned, there is one policy that I liked which is very market-based: require parking spaces to be sold/rented separately from housing units (in developments with common parking lots–not so workable when houses have attached garages). This way people who don’t use cars, or use only one, don’t have to subsidize people who do (who also benefit from being able to rent more spots if they like). Spots shouldn’t even be limited to residents; if a neighbor wants a spot, why not? Additionally, it gives useful information about just how valuable parking and housing are relative to each other– if significant numbers of people opt out, the price falls, and it’s a clear signal for future developers.

  • Eh, I’m not sure that’s really necessary – if a developers thinks that offering free parking to only residents is the profit-maximizing decision, I have no problem with letting them do it.

  • Wow, I didn’t even notice that. You’re right – that’s obviously a mistake.

  • Any single developer has next to no real vested interest in whether or not a city’s transit infrastructure functions cohesively. Having worked with them on building projects on numerous occasions, they’re not worried about whether they are helping or hurting the machine as a whole. As long as people can get to their building to do a walk-through, it’s all good. In many cases, a developer’s financial interest in a property can be sold even before the building is finished. I agree with Alex that it’s not about the developers at all—they are just running a business, not crafting a city. If residents are complaining about congestion, then that is part of crafting the marketplace (and its free market response).

    “…skipping over entirely the obvious intermediate step of just letting people choose for themselves how car- or transit-oriented they want their lives to be.”

    I’m not sure that’s really a solution. Sure, it’s everyone choice whether to own a car or not regardless of how transit-oriented an urban setting is. I live in NYC (what I would consider to be a very transit-oriented city) and people own cars. I think it’s a waste of space, energy and money, but they pay a premium to do it so to each his own. On the other hand, it is not so easy for a person, or even a developer, to decide to be transit-centric in an urban setting that has not made it a priority. Though a given developer could contribute to a transit effort, an effective transit system involves coordination and decisions that are far beyond a single lot and the influence of its owner. Like Alex sais, it’s not a completely free market opportunity. Just providing both car and transit infrastructure to let people “choose for themselves” ends up in situations like spending millions on a light rail that no one uses or parking garages that are 30% full. Those choices should remain in an office with the perspective and authority to influence the system on an city scale (now whether they use/have used that perspective and authority correctly is another matter…)

  • When have you seen a privately owned garage (that wasn’t mandated by parking minimums) that’s only 30% full? And when you talk about NYC, I assume you’re talking about places like the outer boroughs and upper Manhattan – places that all have parking minimums. It seems a little unfair to point to those as examples of the free market at work.

  • Granted, there are parking minimums for virtually every residential zoning type in the city, but a lot of those zoning regulations have been unchanged since the 60’s and I think that other response factors that turn into market forces are appearing in contrast to that. Conversion of roadways to pedestrian plaza (Herald Square, Times Square, Union Square, Madison Square Park), conversion of road lanes to dedicated bike lanes (parts of 9th, 8th, 2nd, 1st), RBT proposed for 2nd Avenue, constriction of 34th Street… and of course congestion pricing–it’s failure was due to the sentiment of commuters, not residents. Zoning may still make it easier to own a car, but once you pull off your lot, I think it could be argued that the city is making it more difficult to move around by car.

  • Alon Levy

    The city is making it more difficult to move around its inner areas by car, but it’s a recent trend. It only goes back to when JSK became Transportation Commissioner.

  • Josh

    I’m running for city council, and your blog is becoming required reading for me.

    Thanks.

    Josh

  • Josh

    I’m running for city council, and your blog is becoming required reading for me.

    Thanks.

    Josh

  • Good to hear! Where, may I ask? Do you have a campaign website or something?

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