I have a hunch it's the bit about the parking that is illegal. To be honest, the whole post rubbed me wrong- like an industry shill or something trying to start some grass-roots anti-building-regulation discord.
I mean, I am not an industry shill, but I also believe that modern zoning and building codes (not the safety codes, but things like parking) make the kind of places that I would enjoy living "illegal to build today". There are a lot of bad regulations in the building codes today. Fireproofing, egress, and siesmic stuff is great, absurdly low FAR in urban areas? 2 parking spaces per unit? That ruins any chance of walkability.
It may change in the future, but if you have a home with two working adults you need to allow for roughly two cars per family (like, 180 per 200 units). Otherwise you have serious community issues. I’ve been president of a community. There are reasons that these rules are asked for and obtained. I don’t like them all, but they solve problems. The setback shot showed pedestrians. What if there were cars in that street- and people in wheelchairs also trying to maneuver down the street?
There are certainly families and communities that will want to live somewhere that has parking for two vehicles -- which is fine, because that means there will be demand to build such housing, and it will be available at a price that reflects the cost of doing so.
But what's the excuse for passing a law that prohibits the alternative? Can't we have both?
> But what's the excuse for passing a law that prohibits the alternative
Avoiding a tragedy of the commons. If you don't make parking mandatory in building code, people won't build it and everyone will try to park on the street in public property, which leads to a bunch of other issues. By mandating the off-street parking by code, you're preserving the city right of ways and ensuring things like fire services, street sweeping, etc. aren't constantly dodging (potentially illegally) parked cars filling every inch of space.
Not sure about other older cities on the east coast, but the problem you describe is a good description of older parts of much of my city.
We have a lot of dense 30’ city lots with no parking, and narrow residential streets not wide enough for parking on both sides. If people park legally, larger vehicles like emergency vehicles cannot pass. So most people park on the sidewalks in residential neighborhoods and it is tolerated. This blocks sidewalks for pedestrians and the disabled, and the sidewalk crumble, look awful, and are a hazard to walk on when cars aren’t parked on them.
Back when the neighborhood was built, there was a robust transit system and everyone worked and shopped in the city center. But now, we have shopping malls, suburbs, and office parks. No longer can a person shop and work exclusively in the city center. It’s too spread out.
Why isn't a better solution to enforce an aggressive towing policy with parking fines sufficient to pay for the enforcement?
Then people who own a car without a parking space will get tired of having their car towed every single day and move into housing that has parking, and the housing without parking will be left occupied by people who don't have cars.
You make it sound easy. There is a huge fight in my town right now about exactly that. You see, when you develop land, that land is being used. You can't go ahead and develop the same land another way. The people in "Old Town" have no off-street parking and never will. Back in the day when the town was less densely settled it was easier to find something to do with their car. But now those resources are scarcer and people are angry that they aren't allowed to park overnight on the street during the winter (another regulation- sheesh).
And it can be damn hard to move. I think it's better to prevent the problem by ensuring developers plan on enough space. Another thing that's sometimes required is to ensure access by car (the developers may be required to rework an intersection). Again, for good reason.
These regulations were born of seeing things that were wrong and trying to fix them. Not perfect, but it's an attempt. Nobody's trying to be evil, they are just trying to make it so that people can live places easily and have their needs accounted for.
> You see, when you develop land, that land is being used. You can't go ahead and develop the same land another way.
But why not?
You have a street with insufficient parking. There is demand for parking, so you buy one of the homes, knock it down, put up a new building with a large parking garage and sell spaces to the neighbors. Now there is more parking.
It seems like the problem is that people want to eat their cake and have it too. They want parking but they don't want to pay for it. But mandating it doesn't allow you to not pay for it, all it does is require you to pay for it even if you don't need it.
You can't make those modifications without others letting you. And when the others don't want that happening in their neighborhood, after 50 years of precedent they decide the best option is to prevent the problem and only allow housing that can fully accomodate the homeowner. And that includes their vehicle.
Someday, it may also include their pets. As of yet it doesn't, but these "thickly settled" areas are starting to feel the effects of people who want to keep large pets in small houses where the space to walk them is limited.
It seems like that would be more of a problem for the people who chose to pay less money and then can't find street parking than for the municipality. But if they really cared then they could just put parking meters on the street parking, priced such that it only gets 80-90% full instead of 110%.
That's a problem for the other residents, whose visitors now can't ever find parking, and any businesses in the area, whose customers can't either. Those people obviously wouldn't want meters in front of their homes and businesses, either. The politically easiest solution was the parking space minimum.
Parking space minimums solve a non-problem. If people want parking they will build it. They shouldn't be forced to though as it adds expense and makes things more car dependent, reinforcing the need for parking. It is a vicious car dependent cycle.
Maybe they will, but not before first overloading the existing available public parking, which may be a non-problem to you but apparently isn't to lots of people who vote.
Can confirm. Used to live in Hollywood, CA hot area. I had a parking space. Having a guest that drives a car - impossible.
However, in LA while it's required to have parking space minimum for new residential buildings it's not required to give those spaces for free to resident. I lived in a new apartment complex with tons of parking, but none of it was used. It was 200$ for extra spot and not guest parking.
Another issue is those dumb plaza everywhere. 50 businesses and 20 parking spots.
The government officials pretty clearly have their own interests and incentives independent from the citizens, but we don't need to go down that road right now.
> What's wrong with them wanting to guarantee that option b) exists?
It's option b) that they're prohibiting. But if you want option a) then all you have to do is choose it -- nobody is requesting that housing with parking be prohibited. If you're willing to pay the premium it costs over housing without parking then go do that, just don't prevent other people from doing something different.
Parking minimums force low density and thus car dependency. Much better to build densely enough so that people don't need cars to live, and have many opt out.
Indeed. I tell people that what the world knows about urban development comes from mistakes made in MA. I live here too. Not in Somerville- I’m up in Marblehead- but I moved from Gaithersburg MD. At first I was annoyed by the regs when I moved to MD, but then I came to understand why they are there.
I'm not sure what you're saying; I don't think Somerville should require parking (though if you choose to build units without off-street parking I think there should be ineligible for on-street parking).
So only people without cars would buy them? Do you think a developer would risk only selling to that market? It seems like that would limit what they could sell the units for, and as a buyer I would have to think carefully about being able to re-sell the unit.
I expect so. About 16% of Somerville households don't have a car (according to the census).
> Do you think a developer would risk only selling to that market?
Some developers would choose to build off-street parking anyway, even though it's not required, and that's fine. I'm saying we should remove the requirement to build parking.
> It seems like that would limit what they could sell the units for, and as a buyer I would have to think carefully about being able to re-sell the unit.
This is another way of saying that the units would be cheaper. That's a good thing!
Uhh, have you heard about the housing affordability problem in many states? The zoning regulations have created cookie cutter cul-de-sac neighborhoods that have contributed to unnatural sprawl. It's very difficult to even innovate in housing and commercial design due to these restrictions.
In Houston, the same thing has happened without zoning. Have you perhaps considered that there is a massive market for "cookie cutter" suburban housing? HOAs have also largely taken the place of zoning, on a hyper-localized level. Furthermore, lots of other stupid rules apply, aside from zoning, that limit the ability to build new housing.
That market was deliberately stoked by FHA and mortgage lending restrictions. The thread itself points out that these issues are not soley the result of zoning.
> While single family zoning was reserved for homeowners (read: White), multi-family housing was seen as being for renters, (people of color).
> State, federal, and local governments all conspired to limit homebuying and lending to whites for decades.
You're not providing any causal link. You are effectively positing that a whites-only neighborhood will spontaneously organize into suburbia, but an integrated one will not? Would you please provide some evidence or background reading to support that?
I won't speak to the race issues but as a former realtor I dealt with FHA loans and they have asinine restrictions on them. I had to get local ordinance exceptions on a number of issues to get a loan approved for some buyers. It was a mess. They required certain lot sizes and certain dimensions. And while FHA has lost its luster a bit over the decades, it used to be a much more common type of loan, as it was one of the few ways to buy without putting a lot of money down.
I was quoting the Twitter thread to show that it discussed alternate causes beyond zoning, not making any of the claims that you seem to have taken issue with.
Uhh yeah. It’s not because of setbacks or hurricane structural requirements or parking spaces. The “cookie cutter cul-de-sac” neighborhoods are the affordable neighborhoods built to fight that. What you present as evidence contradicts your thesis. I lived there. And affordability is why.
A section of publicly owned and maintained road that only 5 families ever use and only for residential use is not a good use of resources and is affordable only if you live there. It is being subsidized by people that live in denser areas unless the roads are paid for by an internal home owner's association.
