Planners make plans for others..

..and then go home to leave neighborhoods to deal with the consequences.

THIS is the REALITY of parking policies:  People have cars.  Even people who bike to work.  Even people who work from home and shop for food a block away.  Even old people.  Even people who move into hip, expensive apartments on SE Division or N Mississippi - they bring their cars with them.

The new-think, New-Urbanism theory is that if you make it more and more difficult and expensive for people to park and drive their cars, then they will want to use transit.  This is not reality.

When development codes give developers a way to get out of providing parking, they take it. Residents may not like it, but they may have few choices but to rent one of these expensive, car-free apartments and park in a neighborhood nearby.  Central Planners will point to the full apartments and say the urban, car-free lifestyle is popular - but this isn't the reality of the situation.

Metro encourages communities to have maximum parking standards with incentives for increased density that include lower parking!  Yes, that's right - increase the number of people, and reduce the parking requirement.  It doesn't make sense!  This doesn't work in the real world.  The code is here in LO too and is being used for the Wizars development.  Imagine the impact on the neighborhoods nearby.

Parking wars, Southeast Portland style
Oregonian, March 14, 2015 By Helen Jung

A visitor parks his Cadillac Escalade across part of Kent Tylman's driveway near SE 33rd Place and SE Division Street. (Courtesy of Kent Tylman)

Southeast Division is one of the neighborhoods that have keenly felt the pain of a dramatic increase in residents with the construction of seven new apartment buildings with at least 270 units over an eight-block stretch. With the city's blessing, most of the buildings include no parking at all for tenants while the others collectively add 55 spaces.

Supposedly, the idea was that developers would market the units to tenants who would bike or take the bus to work, said Richmond Neighborhood Association chairman Allen Field. Many do actually bike or take the bus, Field noted. But they also own cars that they keep parked along neighborhood streets. Insufficient parking, he said, is the biggest and most persistent complaint by neighbors.

At the same time, Division has become Restaurant Row in a city that loves its food scene. While that's a great perk for those in the neighborhood, the restaurants also serve as a magnet for customers to drive there from throughout the city. Visitors park without regard for the homeowners or their ability to even exit their own driveways, said Kent Tylman, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years. When this happens every day, patience and understanding give way to frustration.

The conflict isn't limited to the streets around Southeast Division. The same conflicts affect North Williams Avenue, North Mississippi Avenue and other areas where Portland planning has forced density into mixed-use areas with little attention to the area's ability to support it.

Unfortunately for Division, things are about to get even worse, Field said. The neighborhood received notification that another project is slated to go up near SE 31^st and Division - an apartment complex of about 27 or 28 units. The building, he said, will have no parking.