Tiny spaces squeeze parking

Tiny spaces put squeeze on parking

Coming wave of micro apartments will increase Portland's density, but will renters give up their cars?

Portland Tribune, May 8, 2014. By: Peter Korn

 

by: TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ - The footprint Thurman development is bringing micro apartments 

to Northwest Portland--50 units, shared kitchens, no on-site parking and rents significantly less than for studio

 apartments. Footprint CEO Cathy Reines predicts fewer than ten of the buildings residents will have cars.

Excerpt:

Ten years ago, [Jeanne] Harrison says, she believed that apartment buildings without parking made sense because mass transit would become more available and convenient. That, she says, was the basis of policies she authored that allowed parking-free developments. But it hasn’t happened.

“You shouldn’t have to look at your watch or look at a schedule,” Harrison says of the city she envisioned when writing regulations she knew would make it tougher on inner-city drivers. “You should be able to walk to a corner and within five minutes a bus comes.”

In fact, Harrison says, mass transit availability has declined in her neighborhood and around the city over the last few years, as TriMet revenues have decreased. As a result, all those apartment buildings without parking aren’t necessarily attracting tenants without cars, as had been the plan. And the cars those tenants drive are competing for street parking spaces.

Throughout Northwest Portland, 1,475 new apartments have been built in the last three years or are under construction, according to a survey by NWDA board member Ron Walters. In the past two years, Walters says, only about a third to a quarter of those apartments have come with on-site parking.

Last year, a spate of no-parking development on Southeast Division Street pushed residents to lobby City Hall for relief. As a result, the city adopted an ordinance that basically requires new developments on commercial streets to provide parking for one fourth of its apartments.

A recent city survey of eastside apartment buildings that don’t have parking showed that 72 percent of the tenants owned cars. According to city planner Matt Wickstrom, the survey also found that most of those tenants did not drive to work or drive much at all, just like their Northwest Portland counterparts. But they still held on to their cars.

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This is a good lesson for other cities to beef up the bus system* with more routes, more frequent service and extended hours.  Otherwise, better plan on parking for lots of cars.  Whether it is eco-friendly or not, it's what people want.
*Unless a city is one of the handful that can support an extensive rail system, buses will continue to be far cheaper, more efficient and more convenient for its users.