June 27, 2007
Surprise: Parking Garage Company Wants to Build LA-Style Garages in SF
Say hello to your new next door neighbor: a parking garage. Petitioners are currently collecting signatures for a "build more parking" petition, but the terms are insane: it wouldn't just allow developers to install big garages, it would require that all new homes build on extra parking, at the expense of living space. Require! As in, the government says that you don't have a choice!
More room for cars means less room to house people -- and less room for housing means rent's going to get even higher. Not to mention: more cars means more traffic; slower Muni; longer commutes; wider roads; freeways; stripmalls; air pollution; neighborhoods replaced by parking lots.
It would turn San Francisco into Los Angeles.
And guess who one of the main backers is? Andy Ball, the owner of a construction company that builds parking garages. Life sure will be good for Andy if he can convince the city to require that we all build extra parking spots.
Obviously, Muni is so broken that many of us have to drive. So let's fix that problem: make Muni a viable option, instead of encouraging more car trips, raising your rent, ruining your view, and making your commute even slower.
So when someone asks, "would you sign this petition to add more parking," remember that "adding parking" means "subtracting everything else." So unless your favorite thing to do in SF is sitting in a parking lot: no, no, a thousand times no, you do not want to sign that petition.
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The sheer amount of stupidity in this measure is amazing. Which is, of course why it will pass.
Time for a little Real Estate reality - land in this town is EXPENSIVE. VERY VERY EXPENSIVE. Where, oh where, are these big towers with lots of parking going to go?
How many million dollar houses will need to be knocked down to build these LA style garages? And how many owners of million dollar homes and condos in SF will allow said garages to go up, blocking their views?
More importantly , when you require extra parking for new development you DRIVE UP THE COST of new development. That is why they build all these condo towers without oodles of parking.
This like the retarded arguement the anti BRT people make - demanding instead that "more parking get built near Geary." Yeah right. WHERE would you put it and how many of those pricey homes (lets face it all homes in SF cost a fortune now) would you have to buy to build them? Parking at these big lots would cost $100/day.
Great. And yet, SF's retarded voters will vote for it. Good. You deserve your Daly and your Ed Jew.
This measure would really go against most of the recent planning decisions made about new growth in the city. In the Rincon Hill zoning overlay onsite parking is not allowed unless the developer uses stackers and/or 24/7 on site valet. Even then the maximum ratio is one spot per unit. Contrary to what the previous post stated, most developers want to include parking on site and most buyers want at least one deeded spot for their outrageously overpriced studio. The reason they are not included is that development standards won’t allow them to be built with traditional subterranean in independent structures.
Thanks for putting up something about this awful measure. My gut hurts knowing that it's gonna pass.
-Tad
If this thing passes, it's another nail in the coffin for public transit in SF (which will wither away further), as well as SF's days of being the sidewalk- and public-transit-friendly "Manhattan of the West". It would be nice if more voters realized how important it is to preserve that, but too many of them can't see beyond, "cars good. can't live without car. more parking good."
Well, if this does pass, it should be on the ballot with a congestion charge of $10 to drive your car into downtown San Francisco - proceeds of which going into MUNI and safer sidewalks/bike lanes. One nutty proposition can be met with another one.
This will kill growth, as neighbors fight the traffic. I suspect the number of housing units approved will decline, instead of the number of parking spaces going up.
What bothers me the most is a sentence in the middle of this post:
"It would turn San Francisco into Los Angeles."
San Francisco will never turn into Los Angeles. Equating the two cities because someone wants to build parking garages in congested neighborhoods is ridiculous. SF: compact, laid back, COLD. LA: spread out, high strung, new money, smoggy. The attitudes are different, the culture is different...cars play a part, but they do not define the city (nor do the parking garages).
I am, however, of the same opinion as most of the commenters (and the author of this post); parking garages will not 100% solve the problem. Go to the community meetings and express your support for the BRT proposals!
I'll sign the petition in a HEARTBEAT. This city NEEDS more parking and what better way to do it than to build vertically. Parking garages are safer places to park your car, they keep them clean longer, they provide jobs, and they remove them from the streets - providing for a more pedestrian and biker-friendly, walkable city. Despite the naysayers, more parking garages won't increase traffic into the city since the same parking rules would apply to all street parking spots and ticketing costs would be the same. However, more parking garages would help city workers and residents tremendously and would make everyone's lives much easier and happier.
And, this is WHY it won't happen.
Not here. Not in NIMBYtown.
The blog comments have no back up and are misleading and inflammatory as is the photo.
The proposed measure will pretty much just allow things to remain as they are now, instead of changing it so less/no parking is required.
It has nothing to do with traffic, except that *fewer* cars would be circling the block looking for a space if off-street parking is available.
It has to do with storing your car when you are taking public transportation, walking, biking.
The description of the measure is available... I will post it here when I find it.
It's not the city that needs more parking; it's car-owners. And the best way to provide that is by encouraging people to give up their cars, so only the people who really truly need them have to own them.
Fewer car-owners = better quality of life. But adding garages isn't going to reduce car ownership.
The measure has lots to do with traffic, even though it doesn't mean to. A better measure would address the traffic problem caused by extra parking and increased car trips.
Here is the actual description of what the measure will do:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Parking For Neighborhoods Initiative will create:
"• Parking for homes — The initiative allows owners of homes and small buildings of up to four units to add at least one parking stall, provided it meets applicable development standards for the neighborhood;
"• Parking for neighborhoods — The initiative requires that a minimum of one parking space for each housing unit built in San Francisco neighborhoods outside of Downtown;
"• Parking for apartments — The initiative allows the building of a minimum of three parking spaces for every four housing units they build in Downtown San Francisco, where most of the City’s transit is concentrated;
"• Parking for workers and shoppers — The initiative allows the building of a minimum number of parking stalls in new retail and commercial projects built in the Downtown area or secure a minimum amount of parking for their customers and tenants at nearby public garages;
"• Parking for hybrid cars and car share — The initiative encourages the use of hybrid automobiles and car-sharing services, such as City CarShare, Flexcar, and Zipcar, by requiring developers to set aside spaces for alternative fuel and shared vehicles in garages.
"The “Parking For Neighborhoods” Initiative is a straight-forward solution to San Francisco’s parking crunch."
Do not sign this measure. Vote NO if it somehow makes to the ballot.
What does more parking mean for San Francisco? Less room for housing. And what does less housing mean? More expensive rental properties for everyone. Additional parking only benefits the upper crust, and squashes the middle class even further.
We can have parking or we can have parks, open spaces, and housing. This is space crunched SF, not unbound and sprawling LA or Houston.
"Any city worth it's salt has a parking problem." -Jane Jacobs.
Thanks for posting that text, CRS -- where did you find it? I couldn't find any website for the measure. It's obviously not impartial, but then again, neither is SFist.
Having now read the sales pitch, I stand by what I've written.
Yes CRS, that's the *description* of the measure, as cast by its supporters, but it's not the text of the measure.
The measure actually does the following:
Quintiples the amount of parking allowed in the downtown C3 zone (from 1 space per 5000 square feet to 1 per 1000).
Prevents the C3 district from expanding.
Allows adding parking to existing buildings even if the parking impacts pedestrians, bicycles, transit, or trees.
Oh! That's right, Jwb, I forgot to write about the worst part of this measure: it would allow developers to add parking EVEN IF THE NEW PARKING WOULD DESTROY A BIKE LANE OR BUS STOP.
There would be no means to preserve sidewalks, parks, bike lanes, pedestrians, or buses. All that matters is cars. Welcome to LA.
There is absolutely no reason to add parking to downtown San Francisco exactly because it IS a public transit hub area. You can get here by plane, train, ferry boat, bus, and taxi cab ...
I find these two bullet points counter-intuitive for that reason:
Parking for apartments — The initiative allows the building of a minimum of three parking spaces for every four housing units they build in Downtown San Francisco, where most of the City’s transit is concentrated;
Parking for workers and shoppers — The initiative allows the building of a minimum number of parking stalls in new retail and commercial projects built in the Downtown area or secure a minimum amount of parking for their customers and tenants at nearby public garages;
Downtown needs less parking ... discourage folks from driving here. Start by raising the parking meter rates to a point where folks won't park there for hours upon hours.
"• Parking for hybrid cars and car share — The initiative encourages the use of hybrid automobiles and car-sharing services, such as City CarShare, Flexcar, and Zipcar, by requiring developers to set aside spaces for alternative fuel and shared vehicles in garages.
I find it very annoying that CarShare (shared by 100's of drivers) and a single person's hybrid are lumped together.
Yes, THANK GOD for bike lanes.
They do wonders in keeping bikers off the sidewalk.
Think of the massive Muni delays if this passes. DO NOT sign this petition!
Not sure, but it sounds like this measure would conflict with San Francisco's General Plan. So are its proponents asking for a General Plan amendment or what?
Plus, the city's congested enough. The last thing we need is to provide incentives for more cars on all of our roads. I hate the idea of providing all this extra parking to out-of-town shoppers at the expense of residents - in the form of less space for housing, parks, and the expense of maintaining more facilities for parking.
Oh yeah, and parking garages are ugly too.
The part about downtown parking: the text simply repeats what was decided last year when C-3 was before the Planning Commission and the BOS. It does not mess with what was decided then and there.
Also, there is absolutely no back up for most of the comments (and the blog itself) that trash the measure being made here.
The pat phrases people are using have been used so often that a lot of folks believe their pap, but show me the studies to support what you're saying.
People have cars. It's a fact. Squelching parking is anti-working-class and anti-family.
I think a good deal of SFist's readers have families and are working-class -- or at least, are of a class that works -- and would rather see faster Muni, faster commutes, cleaner air, and cheaper rent than a brand new parking garage.
As far as backing up the comments being made: there's simply no arguing most of the effects of having more parking. How can you possibly build more parking without reducing space for housing?
It would be great to get the text of the actual proposition, so we could point to the parts that would decimate bus stops -- does anyone have a copy?
San Francisco is already anti-working-class and anti-family. Have you paid any attention at all to the cost of renting even a one-room studio apartment in SF? Have you observed the huge up-hill battle to establish a safe car-free zone for children to play in Golden Gate Park?
This parking garages measure will make the city even worse for working-class families by increasing public transit delays experienced by people who do not have the privilege of owning private automobiles due to the increased traffic congestion that the parking garages will likely cause.
It's not a case of "EITHER parking OR better Muni," and is incorrect to frame it as such.
It's co-existence: it's possible to have BOTH.
Also remember that the amount of parking in downtown has increased dramatically over the past decade and there are still parking problems. When will our hunger for our subsidized, polluting, and space hogging autocars end?
(actually had a reference to hard numbers, but the carfreeliving list appears to have a broken archive STILL. plz fix Dave Snyder)
I can agree with that. Boston and New York and London, for example, seem to have a fairly livable, sustainable balance. But I don't think this particular measure is moving us in that direction. If anything, it seems to be a concrete-pouring company's attempt to give itself a gift.
I'm working class and I support more parking garages! Almost every working class San Franciscan I know owns a car - even if theirs is a one car family. They are often renters who have to park on the street. If they could have a guarenteed space in a garage and pay little or nothing for it, most would do so in a minute. Instead, our cars are broken into and stolen the most - more than the rich...which in this city it comes down to being either extremely rich or barely just getting by. The wealthy and upper middle class aren't plagued with the street crime and parking issues the rest of us live with, so why should they care if there are more or less parking garages!
All of you talking about housing: show me the housing that is AFFORDABLE! Show me who is building 2-3 bedroom units that aren't $350,000 at the very least! Most of us will always be renters because we cannot afford to buy, even with all of the programs in place. Yet many of us who live in the city aren't served well by public transporation and have to drive in order to live with dignity.
So who are YOU who want to deny us our needs?!
And then you have the fucking GALL to thumb your noses at much needed sales tax dollars by saying you don't want more shoppers to come into the city while the fucking Metreon sits empty and Mom and Pop shops close due to lack of business!???
Seriously: are you spiteful, deluded, insane, or all three?
Yeah, rich neighborhoods don't have as many car break-ins. I don't think parking configuration is the cause of that as much as the relative safety of well-heeled streets, compared to poorer ones.
There's no such thing as a free garage. There's always hidden costs like higher rent, slower Muni, dirty air, fewer parks.
I'm not sure how to interpret the argument, "we need to force everyone to build extra parking spots in order to have any dignity."
And as far as not wanting shoppers and hating the Metreon goes: wait, what?
You don't get it! The parking is WHY the housing is expensive! Let's say we took the parking lot in front of Best Buy, and replaced it with 12 houses. And the parking lot of the Diamond Heights Safeway. And the parking lot at the Potrero Safeway. And so on, and so on. Add those 1000's of units to the San Francisco Cityscape and prices will come down.
YOU have decided that you would rather have a car than an affordable place to live. If YOU want a car AND a 3 bedroom house under $350,000 - move to Kansas. IF you want to stay here - YOU will make the collective choice to decide what is more important to you - a CAR or AFFORDABLE housing.
But YOU are too shortsighted. YOU think the only money you spend is what you actually take out of your wallet. But when YOU decide you NEED a car - you are paying a lot more than you think - your choice to have a car means you are paying for every parking spot in this city in the cost of things you pay for that would be cheaper if we didn't NEED those cars.
Quit blaming "the rich". Start blaming "The Stupid"
I would like to know how many "affordable housing" and "rent-controlled" apartments are actually second homes in the City for folks who own homes outside of the City. I heard a guy today talking about how he and his partner bought a place in Pleasanton, but he kept his rent-controlled apartment in the City cuz "its so cheap." No wonder we don't have enough affordable housing if there is no requirement for folks to submit their taxes every couple of years to verify they aren't making $80k/year instead of the $40k/year when they first moved to the City a decade ago and now just use the rent-controlled or affordable housing as the City standby.
I digress...
Cars are a major cause of global warming. We need to reduce the number of CO2 producing cars on the road. Just because it is an inconvenience to wake up a little bit earlier and wait on BART or a bus or a ferry boat to bring you into the City, don't tell me about being anti-family, anti-worker, blah, blah, blah .... you chose to live outside of the City, suck it up or move back here where you don't need a car except the occasional escape to Tahoe or whatever.
"It's not a case of "EITHER parking OR better Muni," and is incorrect to frame it as such.
It's co-existence: it's possible to have BOTH."
Actually, I'm pretty sure that it's impossible to have better Muni service.
CRS, parking and Muni are actually in tension with one another. More off-street parking means more curb cuts, and more curb cuts makes Muni slower. More parking downtown means more people driving to downtown, which makes downtown-bound Muni vehicles slower.
If you need an example of the former phenomenon, watch the 14 bus dodging turning cars all over SoMa. For the former, observe the express routes stuck in traffic every morning coming down Bush.
The complaints about Muni, at least in regards to service downtown, have no merit. Muni works fine .. .maybe not to your instant gratification, but it works fine. Outside of downtown, I have no idea ... I don't travel west of Castro via Muni much.
Furthermore, according to SPUR, 49% of the 320,000 people arriving downtown on a weekday arrive via Muni or BART. Only 41% arrive in a car. Yet the vast majority of our downtown infrastructure is devoted to private cars and parking.
We need more parking downtown in the same way we need a 9.0 earthquake, which is to say not at all.
OK, what is Andy Ball's problem? Why more garages?? Webcor need more projects?? Why not build more freakin' affordable housing!!!
I know Webcor is involved with other projects in The City, like Millennium Tower, The Infinity, and California Academy of Sciences. Millennium Tower and The Infinity are out of financial reach of many. Webcor's projects are under $50 million (source); the company can build a lot of housing for that price.
I don't want SF to look like Manhattan. It should look more like Vancouver urban sustainability, walkable and bikeable within our 7 by 7 miles city limit.
Andy, please take part in building more gleaming affordable residential towers. There is money to be made there!
Cheers.
The price of housing is divorced from the price of construction and the wage base. Units cost like $300-400K to build and go for $600K and up.
At one time when margins were tighter, parking influenced prices, no more.
I like the idea of containing the C3.
Parking in downtown SF has always been offered at below market rate as measured by Boston and NYC where you can't pull into a space for less than $30, a relic of the west where your car is your horse.
Hopefully, if this measure qualifies there will be a poison pill parking ballot measure that will just make people vote NO on them all.
-marc
When I see how much vacant land sits empty in the City of San Francisco, how many new units have been built in the last 3 years (including that huge monstrosity on Rincon Hill) and how many neighborhoods are blanketed with one/two story buildings, for some idiot to claim the parking in front of Best Buy and Safeway are to blame for high housing prices really just says it all about the incredible lunacy that passes for reason in this city.
High housing prices are a result of an unregulated, speculative investors market driving up costs for substandard homes and property because stupid assholes like Murphstahoe are willing to pay them.
I don't have the answers to the high housing cost problem, but there is one clear answer to the parking woes of San Francisco's neglected class: more parking garages NOW!
All I have to say is that I've lived here 25 years without a car. We don't need more car congestion. Period
[32] guest:
Ha ha! Good one in this mass of angry back-and-forth.
I was simply referring to how the anti-parking folks are framing their argument: they are writing that it must be "either/or," but that is not the case.
> Actually, I'm pretty sure that it's
> impossible to have better Muni service.
>> "It's not a case of "EITHER parking OR
>> better Muni," and is incorrect to frame it as such.
>>
>> It's co-existence: it's possible to have BOTH."
Thanks for tipping me against a measure I didn't know existed before today, CRS!
I'll add another point to why this measure is bad and you should NOT sign it and if it goes to the voters you should vote NO.
This flawed measure takes away the city's availability to control where and how new parking spots are made. This measure would assign a minimum amount of parking to each new structure. 1:1 parking means that I developer MUST include parking with each new unit built, even if their plans don't require or need any.
In short, this measure is bad, and you should NOT sign the petition because it will tie the cities hands when it comes to intelligent urban planning.