Santa Barbara ready to declare their Chick-Fil-A a public nuisance

[MillauFr]

Well, that is how it is now and given government was requiring fewer spots that was needed, it will be a mess.

The developers can provide as many parking spots as they wish. They should be able to figure out how many are needed.

 

[tvguy]

The developers can provide as many parking spots as they wish. They should be able to figure out how many are needed.

Apparently not.

 

[MillauFr]

Apparently not.

You mean there is a maximum number of parking spots allowed by government regulations?

 

[kdonnel]

You mean there is a maximum number of parking spots allowed by government regulations?

I think he is saying that the local governments are encouraging use of public transit by specifying a maximum number of spots that can be built to discourage individual car ownership.

 

[tvguy]

You mean there is a maximum number of parking spots allowed by government regulations?

No, sorry, I misread your message. Government regulations in California prohibits any MINIMUM requirement for parking.

 

[bcla]

I think he is saying that the local governments are encouraging use of public transit by specifying a maximum number of spots that can be built to discourage individual car ownership.

Not really. It's new state law that doesn't allow a city or county to mandate minimum parking requirements within a half mile of public transit. Part of the rationale is that parking costs money and increases the price of real estate. The general idea is that developers might just forgo lots of parking in favor of building more units.

https://calmatters.org/newsletters/...alifornia-housing-parking-requirement-newsom/
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2097

 

[EMom]

Just build a few more CFA. Problem solved.

 

[kdonnel]

Not really. It's new state law that doesn't allow a city or county to mandate minimum parking requirements within a half mile of public transit. Part of the rationale is that parking costs money and increases the price of real estate. The general idea is that developers might just forgo lots of parking in favor of building more units.

https://calmatters.org/newsletters/...alifornia-housing-parking-requirement-newsom/
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2097

Still sounds like a law to discourage car ownership and encourage use of public transit.

No developer is going to build parking in favor of more units(profit), residents are going to find it is easier to ditch their car and take public transit rather than deal with the parking nightmare.

Or developers will find that people really want parking and their developments sit empty.

 

[bcla]

Still sounds like a law to discourage car ownership and encourage use of public transit.

No developer is going to build parking in favor of more units(profit), residents are going to find it is easier to ditch their car and take public transit rather than deal with the parking nightmare.

Or developers will find that people really want parking and their developments sit empty.

The developers still have the option to build as much parking as they want. It does sound like there were some that tried to build with less parking but were thwarted by city or county ordinances mandating a minimum amount of parking.

 

[MillauFr]

Still sounds like a law to discourage car ownership and encourage use of public transit.

No developer is going to build parking in favor of more units(profit), residents are going to find it is easier to ditch their car and take public transit rather than deal with the parking nightmare.

Or developers will find that people really want parking and their developments sit empty.

Developers have the freedom to determine how much parking they want to provide. The way it should be.

 

[kdonnel]

The developers still have the option to build as much parking as they want. It does sound like there were some that tried to build with less parking but were thwarted by city or county ordinances mandating a minimum amount of parking.

Developers have the freedom to determine how much parking they want to provide. The way it should be.

Some regulation is always needed. In this case a determination has been made that regulation needed to be put in place to increase housing density within 1/2 mile of public transit. The stated goal, increased density should result in more affordable housing.

A secondary goal is to promote public transit use.

Left to their own devices, developers will NOT build in a community sustainable way. They need to be pushed and prodded to do the right thing from a community goal standpoint, otherwise everything built is from a profit standpoint.

The hope of those that crafted the law is that single or no car people will move into these higher density developments and it will become a walking neighborhood. It sounds like in some cases that is not what has happened based on remote parking lots being built.

Finding the right density for a given area should be an important goal of government and should be regulated. In compatible infill is a problem and as communities decided to grow from within and stop their outward expansion, community leaders need to be careful in their infill regulations.

Only time will tell if a majority of pro public transit people move into these denser developments making them a success.

If not the developments will be similar to the Chick-fil-A that started this thread.

A nuisance to the surrounding businesses and residents.

 

[bcla]

Some regulation is always needed. In this case a determination has been made that regulation needed to be put in place to increase housing density within 1/2 mile of public transit. The stated goal, increased density should result in more affordable housing.

A secondary goal is to promote public transit use.

Left to their own devices, developers will NOT build in a community sustainable way. They need to be pushed and prodded to do the right thing from a community goal standpoint, otherwise everything built is from a profit standpoint.

The hope of those that crafted the law is that single or no car people will move into these higher density developments and it will become a walking neighborhood. It sounds like in some cases that is not what has happened based on remote parking lots being built.

Finding the right density for a given area should be an important goal of government and should be regulated. In compatible infill is a problem and as communities decided to grow from within and stop their outward expansion, community leaders need to be careful in their infill regulations.

Only time will tell if a majority of pro public transit people move into these denser developments making them a success.

If not the developments will be similar to the Chick-fil-A that started this thread.

A nuisance to the surrounding businesses and residents.

I can't imagine that someone building something like a luxury condo in San Francisco is going to go without parking for every unit. But we've gotten quite a few high-density housing developments near transit stations (especially BART here in the Bay Area). They've even built them on top of what was formerly a parking lot or garage, which reduced availability of parking for riders. Some of the developers might have wanted to go for the higher density with fewer parking spaces.

Strangely enough, I have some friends (originally from China) who bought condos in China a years ago. The standard was that a parking space in the garage wasn't included but could be purchased as an add on. One friend bought two units and apparently got the parking for free. But most owners didn't have a parking space. I think a lot of people would end up renting parking spaces in the neighborhood.

 

[Colleen27]

The one closest to me is still a hot mess, and it has been open almost a year. I really thought the craziness would die down but apparently traffic tie ups from their three-lane drive thru spilling out onto an already-congested major road is just the new normal. At least it is in a place where no one in their right mind would walk or bike because the sidewalks are now pretty much always blocked during operating hours. I do wonder if that's not part of their marketing strategy, though, from how often this same story pops up when they enter a new market. It has certainly kept them in the headlines and in the social media conversation around me, and the other location they opened at the same time on the other side of the metro area has had enough of the same problems that I know where it is despite not having been out that way in 20-odd years.

 

[Colleen27]

Still sounds like a law to discourage car ownership and encourage use of public transit.

It also protects older parts of cities from requirements that destroy traditional downtown areas. A lot of communities in my county embraced minimum-parking requirements in the 70s and 80s, and it led to quaint walkable downtowns with ground-floor retail and apartments above being gutted or leveled entirely to meet those requirements. Now the communities that didn't do that still have their cute downtowns with visitor/tourist appeal and the ones that did have strip malls with generic stores like CVS and Dollar Tree at the heart of the town and are struggling with a loss of younger residents for lack of available rental units.

I think the next "frontier" in zoning regulation, at least in my area, is going to be to start constraining the building of self-storage units. They're so much cheaper to build than housing or retail and turn a profit so much more quickly that they're going up all over the place, in spaces the cities and counties had targeted as attractive for higher-density housing. It is a completely rational decision from a developer's perspective but not so great for the surrounding communities to have no apartments for new grads or young professionals but acres and acres of places for the people who already own single family homes to store their spillover clutter.

I can't imagine that someone building something like a luxury condo in San Francisco is going to go without parking for every unit. But we've gotten quite a few high-density housing developments near transit stations (especially BART here in the Bay Area). They've even built them on top of what was formerly a parking lot or garage, which reduced availability of parking for riders. Some of the developers might have wanted to go for the higher density with fewer parking spaces.

I was surprised how many of the homeowners around my daughter's university rent out their only parking space. I have to assume they don't own a car because I can't imagine they're choosing to rent out a garage spot only to park on the street themselves. But since campus doesn't have any student parking, students who want to bring their car have to find their own and apparently there are quite a few who rent the one-car garage at homes in the neighborhood around the campus.

 

[bcla]

I was surprised how many of the homeowners around my daughter's university rent out their only parking space. I have to assume they don't own a car because I can't imagine they're choosing to rent out a garage spot only to park on the street themselves. But since campus doesn't have any student parking, students who want to bring their car have to find their own and apparently there are quite a few who rent the one-car garage at homes in the neighborhood around the campus.

Brownstones don't have parking, but I'd think most owners have cars. I'm not quite sure how people deal with parking since there is only so much street parking, especially with homes so close to each other. But at least they don't have driveways to reduce available parking.