News Nov 14, 2012 at 4:00 am

Portland's Low-Car Building Boom Angers Neighbors

Comments

1
Forcing developers to provide parking adds to the cost of development. That may mean "excess profits" for developers in the short term, but once the rental market drops, landlords who don't have to cover the debt service on parking spaces will be able to lower their rents and stay competitive, whereas developers forced to pay for mandated parking will lose out.

Also, where in a homeowner's title deed does it say that their house comes with a free space to park their personal car in the public right of way?!? If demand for on-street parking starts to exceed supply in our neighborhoods, the city should manage the situation with permits, meters. HOWEVER, at least part of the resulting revenue should be returned to all residents of the neighborhood -- even those who choose not to own cars -- in the form of neighborhood enhancements, etc.

Lastly, Portland now has over 800 car-sharing vehicles (185 Zipcars; 240 Car2go; 380 Getaround cars), vs. only 185 vehicles on January 1. Clearly a lot more people are choosing to carshare, and that trend is accelerating.

Imposing blanket parking requirements on new developments will stymie the redevelopment that's making our neighborhoods more economically vibrant -- and affordable. Change can be painful, but density is reducing suburban sprawl -- and improving our neighborhoods. Don't change the policy.
2
Imposing blanket parking requirements on new developments will stymie the redevelopment that's making our close-in neighborhoods crowded and ugly. The only new businesses are bars. Just say no to social engineering by real estate interests.
3
Do you own a car Steve? How about your wife?

Landlords will charge the maximum rent they can charge while maintaining roughly 95% occupancy. The market sets rents, not development costs.

And the costs of developing parking are defrayed across the lifetime of the building. It is not as if the $3,000 cost of a spot has to be paid off by the first tenant within a year.

This discussion is infuriating because everyone acts like it is either/or. We must either have no parking requirment at all, or require a spot for every unit. There are many choices in between, such as requiring one spot for every two or three units. Even this reduced amount would go a long way to alleviating outside impacts.
8
That's right. Reduce the ratio of people to parking, and strangle business to death. If consumers can't find parking downtown, then they will go do business in the burbs. This is how you create a ghetto.
9
....Or is that parking to people?
10
I find it funny that many of the people most outspoken to this idea are Republicans (one guy here sports a Ron Swanson pic..lol).. This is the free market at work!!! There is demand for these buildings and lack of supply. The city is not subsidizing these buildings. Requiring parking is a government regulation and I thought that ALL regulation is bad. I guess it goes to show Repubs aren't free market fans at all, they just like regulations that favor them and dislike those that don't.
11
Why require parking and/or why require no parking? Not having parking will kill business. If that's what the property owners want, let them knock themselves out. Of course eventually nobody will want to live there, because there won't be any jobs in the area, and the area will become a slum.
12
Detroit has more than 30,000 vacant houses, and the deficit-strangled city has no resources of its own to level them. Mayor Dave Bing is promoting a plan to tear down as many as possible using federal money. The state is also contributing to the effort.

But it's hard to keep up. About a quarter-million people moved out of Detroit between 2000 and 2010, leaving just over 700,000 residents in a city built for 2 million.

From the street, the two decomposing bodies were nearly invisible, concealed in an overgrown lot alongside worn-out car tires and a moldy sofa. The teenagers had been shot, stripped to their underwear and left on a deserted block.

They were just the latest victims of foul play whose remains went undiscovered for days after being hidden deep inside Detroit's vast urban wilderness -- a crumbling wasteland rarely visited by outsiders and infrequently patrolled by police.

When he joined the department 13 years ago, Garner patrolled a 3.6-square-mile area in the tough 3rd Precinct, bumping into another officer every 20 minutes. Now he covers 22 square miles and crosses paths with other officers "maybe once every two hours."


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/02/vacan…
13
I wish I could find a link to the show that NPR did. Entire sections of Detroit have been actually taken off the map. Somebody called 911 to report an attempted suicide by hanging in a nearly deserted neighborhood, and the dispatcher had no listing of the street or house address.
14
Well Said Blabby.
15
City of Portland taking institutional racism to new levels. Exhibit A: the photo above.
16
Read my profile, Bubba.

Is the irony lost on anybody here?

Everybody moves out of Detroit, because nobody is buying cars, so O'bama bails out General Motors, and Portland decides that it's better to eliminate parking than for residents to have any way to drive to work because business has been driven off by lack of parking and there is no place left to work downtown?
17
Chevy is practically giving away Volts, but where would I park it?

The GM bailout had nothing to do with helping Detroit. It was just compensation to major shareholders, for the planned destruction of the industry.

Has anybody ever seen, "Escape from New York?

http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/horrors-of-fema-disaster-relief/
18
Can someone explain why the parking study showing that parking is no problem was conducted in August and September- when the weather was great and many people
with cars were out enjoying the forests?

Please wait...

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