Chicago will no longer require new buildings near transit to include parking.
Chicago will no longer require new buildings near transit to include parking.
chi.streetsblog.org
Chicago's vote to totally eliminate parking mandates near train stations & bus routes is a great response to our city's housing crisis and traffic woes - Streetsblog Chicago
Making space for storing large metal boxes is no longer mandatory.
I don't get why laws like that are a thing at all. This is a near perfect example of something better sorted out by the free market instead of government regulation. Some people want a house or apartment with a parking spot, other people don't need it, so a free market system ought to cause both kinds of housing to be built as there is demand.
There isn't a free market. Regulation is the only thing that can make capitalism safe and productive for society, as this counters the negative effects of prioritizing money over anything else. If the people of Chicago want to take care of each other better, this is a fantastic way to do so, and it should be supported and emulated.
"free market" is overrated. People aren't well informed rational actors.
the answer is most likely lobbying. induced demand is a thing and car companies know it. I'd be shocked if these laws weren't originally written by a car company representative.
That and the HOA / NIMBY crowd.
They hate affordable housing.
That means they make less money.
That means their property values go down if housing is just generally cheaper.
Thus, anything, literally anything that lowers construction costs is opposed by them.
...
They climbed the ladder over the wall, then they built the wall higher, and took away the ladder.
They will fight for every single possible, arbitrary costly thing that can be tacked on to make a 'bare minimum viable housing unit' as expensive as possible, because they are directly financially incentivized to do so, vis a vis their own wealth being reliant on property values never ever going down, in real or nominal or relative terms.
No public transit, no bike lanes, no rent a bike/scooters, no tax breaks nor subsidy programs for renters at anywhere near the scope and magnitude offered to homeowners, no solutions for food deserts, no tenants rights, no goddamned nothing that in a direct or indirect way might make their next home value on appraisal go up by too little, or their property taxes go up by too much.
They are demons, they want you to be broke and suffer so they can be rich and lazy, and they will lie to your face about this being their motivatiom, and they will hire others to do so.
Landowners vs non-landowners, tale as old as time, just looks a bit different in our particular setting.
Maybe, but one would think companies that build houses have a lobby too.
Spoiler alert!
The market isn't free
It's also an important thing for price discovery. As it stands few of these municipalities have any idea how much a parking spot is worth vs how much it costs.
They build some not-so-affordable apartments near my friend's house that has a parking garage underneath and is a short walk from mass transit. But the parking garage isn't included in rent, so everyone was parking on the street until the town started ticketing people who parked in front of houses they didn't own.
Even in this case, people are too stupid or selfish for the "free market" to work properly. Personally, I don't see an issue with forcing apartments to have a parking garage underneath, even if it's just for bikes and scooters.
Because parking spaces in a garage can cost nearly as much to construct as the apartment itself. If we want plentiful, affordable housing we've got to loosen the grip on parking regs a bit
A bike room in place of a ramp is a good idea though
If there is plenty of free on-street parking, then the free-market was working properly.
I would like to see a law allowing parking in a residential building to be used as storage with maybe a container requirement and allowing for the parking of any vehicle. Many places won't allow bikes to be parked in the spot by the owner. which is bs.
Well, now the requirement is no more. So I guess they think the same as you.
I think a city has a right to zone this way. Building parking means cars come. The city is encouraging different means of transportation by limiting the cars coming in. They're not saying you, Joe Apartment Renter, can't bring your car; just that you won't have a spot to park in, and you'll have to go on the hunt every night when you get home. So it's basically discouraging folks who require a car from choosing to live here.
Of course, I agree with you. I owned a car for some years (don't anymore) and didn't have a parking spot on the grounds of my apartment building at the time, I always needed to find a parking space on a public street (usually didn't take long, I usually managed to park next to the block I live in).