Black Friday Parking in the Rearview Mirror

A week ago, I introduced Black Friday Parking, an effort by StrongTowns to document an error within many municipal parking codes.

As StrongTowns notes, many parking codes set minimum parking requirements to ensure that all shoppers on the busiest shopping day of the year can find a parking space.  (I have a philosophical difficulty with that standard, noting, as I did in my earlier post, that it implicitly gives priority to the last arriving shopper on a single day of the year over the daily needs of transit riders who must tromp across expanses of largely vacant asphalt on every day of the year.  But that’s a topic for another post.)

The StrongTowns folks, although they may agree with my philosophical point, make a different argument.  They contend the busiest day standard isn’t set correctly.  They observe that, even on the day that many consider the single busiest day, Black Friday, many lots are far less than full.

To add strength to their observation, they ask StrongTowns members and friends to take parking lot photos on Black Friday and to post them to Twitter with the tag #BlackFridayParking.   I suggest looking through the postings.  They give insight to the uncertain function of parking standards.

Although I think that the StrongTowns’ argument is valid, my personal Black Friday Parking experience was anticlimactic.  Because of family obligations, I couldn’t set aside much time to sightsee in parking lots.  But, in the middle of the afternoon, I found a couple of free minutes to drop by one of the older malls in the northern California town of Chico.  I expected to find what others were reporting, a parking lot that was barely half full.

That’s not what I found.  The lot I visited was functioning much as the code intended, not quite full, but darned closed.  With only a handful of open spaces in the furthest rows, I’m guessing that the lot was at 95 percent capacity.

I can still make the argument that a correctly-sized lot would have been completely full with many folks deferring their shopping to another day, but within the intent of many zoning codes, the mall parking lot was working well.  (When time permits, I’ll use aerial mapping to count the parking places versus the mall retail space to calculate the apparent ratio for comparison with typical zoning code ratios.)

Although my Friday experience didn’t buttress the StrongTowns argument, I had a different parking-related experience over the holiday weekend that was insightful in its own way.

With the drive from the North Bay to Chico scheduled for the day after, my wife and I planned a modest Thanksgiving Day dinner, but there was still shopping to be done.  With the awareness that before-Thanksgiving grocery store crowds would likely rival the post-Thanksgiving gift shopping crowds, we planned an early outing.

The plan was mostly successful.  We returned with groceries in the mid-morning after jostling with only moderate crowds.  Then my wife realized that she’d forgotten the horseradish.  So I found myself heading back into the teeth of the mobs.   I visited a small grocery store near our home with a one-item list just as the last-minute grocery shopping crowds descended.

It’s a fine little store, nicely meeting the needs of its part of town.  It’s perhaps a third the size of a modern full-service grocery store, with a parking lot that is probably less than a sixth the size.

Most days, parking is available, although it can sometimes be close.  But on the day before Thanksgiving, the lot was in full failure mode.  Cars were circling in hopes of spaces opening and other cars were blocking the adjoining streets, awaiting a chance to join the circling cars.

I quickly made the decision to park elsewhere, pulled into the municipal lot across the street, and found a parking space after only one loop.  As I walked back to cross the street to the grocery store, I chatted with another shopper who had made the same decision as me.  And when I returned to my car, I was able to flag down another driver who was circling in frustration and to point him toward my soon-to-vacated space.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience, with the extra time I spent crossing the street probably less than the time I spend waiting in a long line to pay for my little bottle of horseradish.  It was proof that the parking lots can fail without the world ending.

(Although not relevant to parking, the horseradish had one more adventure to go.  On the way home, another driver, perhaps overeager to begin her stuffing, ran a stop sign in front of me.  I braked hard and the horseradish flew off the passenger seat.  By the time I reached home, it had rolled under the seat and was jammed in the slider mechanism.  I spent several minutes kneeling in my driveway, working through the rear door to free the bottle.  Rarely has a one-dollar bottle of horseradish been so hard-won.)

My Wednesday horseradish outing gave me grist for thought during my drive to Chico on Friday.  The question I posed was “If we modify the minimum parking requirements to more closely match the peak day demand or, even better, be 25 percent less that the peak day demand as the grocery store may have been, would should happen to the people with the excess cars?”   There are several answers.

·         They stay home, pushing off shopping to another day.  (This is a workable solution for the Black Friday folks, but not for the day before Thanksgiving grocery folks.)

·         They park in nearby parking lots or in curbside parking, assuming that either exists.

·         They walk, bike, or ride transit to the store, assuming that they live close enough to do one of those and that the sidewalks, bike routes, and/or transit routes exist that will accommodate their travel.

Not surprisingly, the latter two are straight from the urbanist playbook.  Reducing parking lot sizes, or even eliminating parking lots, can be a good urbanist approach.

Parking, especially free parking, can be a canary in the coal mine of good urbanism.  It’s a topic to which I intend to return in 2016.

Before closing, I have several links to offer.

In my earlier post on Black Friday Parking, I puzzled over the origin of Black Friday as applied to the day after Thanksgiving.  Digg.com gives a credible explanation that it was first applied by the Philadelphia Police Department to the traffic jams that occurred on the day. 

Also, StrongTowns founder Chuck Marohn tells the story of his journey to Black Friday Parking.  As a fellow civil engineer, I can appreciate the frustration he felt with the parking provisions of zoning codes that appear unrelated to good town planning. 

Regular StrongTowns contributor Andrew Price writes about Hoboken, which could become an urbanist delight if parking minimums aren’t allowed to undermine its direction.

Lastly, StreetsBlog looks in from the outside and commends StrongTowns for the Black Friday Parking idea.

A trip I eagerly anticipate in 2016 is to Detroit for CNU24, the 24th annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism.  For my holiday reading, I’ll begin a study of the recent history of Detroit.  One of the topics in which I expect to find much to mine is the role of suburbs versus urban cores.  In my next post, I’ll describe some recent thinking on the subject.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Calling Friday Black for a Better Reason

About this time of year, perhaps a decade ago, a coworker described the day after Thanksgiving as Black Friday.  I was puzzled by the reference.  To me, Black Friday referred to the 1929 stock market crash.  I assumed my coworker was mistaken.

Although I still remain dubious about the cultural references of the coworker, it turned out that he was right and I was wrong.  In fact, I was doubly wrong.  In the stock market, Black Friday refers not to the 1929 crash, but to the much earlier 1869 crash.  The worst day of the 1929 crash was a Tuesday, now known, predictably, as Black Tuesday.

Meanwhile, when I wasn’t looking, the Black Friday name had been co-opted in the past few decades to describe the pre-Christmas retail frenzy of the day after Thanksgiving.

Even with knowing that bit of common culture, I’m puzzled by the ascribing of “black” to a pre-Christmas retail event.  I would have expected red or green to be better color choices.  However, I’m told that black refers to how the day helps ensure that retailers will finish their years with a profit, or “in the black”.  As much as anyone, I value the need of businesses to be profitable in order to remain in business.  But I still find it perplexing that we use a bookkeeping benchmark to describe a mass of people descending upon malls and big boxes.

Luckily for common sense, StrongTowns and others are retasking the name Black Friday with a definition of “black” that seems more appropriate.  Their subject, and the target of their frustration, is retail parking.  In particular, the surfeit of retail parking.

Having spent years participating in the land-use process, both working with developers and reviewing projects from the public perspective, I have a good handle on how developers view surface parking.  They love it.  And they love having lots of it.  Their affection has several reasons beyond the obvious one of providing places for customers to leave their cars while spending money.

Developers like having surface lots that are half empty because those lots send a message to consumers that the stores aren’t busy.  Even if the aisles inside are packed tight, a half-empty parking lot is an advertisement for drivers to stop and to join the throng.  So large parking lots allow developers to more easily attract retail tenants.

Also, parking lots aren’t considered very productive spaces, so don’t carry large property tax assessments.  (Those who have read the StrongTown Curbside Chat booklet will remember the Taco John example of recent redevelopment having a lower assessed value per acre that the previous
“blight”.  Much of the pervasive anomaly is the result of redevelopment including lightly-taxed parking lots.)

 So, with a good reward and a low cost, it’s not surprising that developers want lots and lots of lots (parking lots, that is).

However, urbanists have a different view on the subject.

Harkening back to what Jeff Speck, author of “Walkable City”, wrote about walkability, three of his four essential elements for walkable places are comfort, interest, and usefulness.  Parking lots undermine all three.  There’s not much comfort in walking on a sidewalk bounded by speeding cars on one side and an expanse of asphalt with scattered cars on the other.  The setting also lacks interest.  And even usefulness doesn’t thrive when useful places are separated by open expanses.  There’s a reason that few folks arrive at shopping malls on foot.

At a more visceral level is the challenge faced by transit riders when the stores are pushed to the back of their sites behind parking lots.  Transit riders, who often have less personal mobility than average citizens, must navigate their way from a bus stop to a distant store and back again, a longer walk than anyone arriving by car must traverse.

To make the situation even worse, the parking is often described as free, even though we all understand that the costs are folded into the retail pricing.  So transit riders are paying for “free parking” they don’t use both at the cash register and in their knees.

(A frequent question at this point is why transit buses aren’t routed through parking lots to bus stops closer to stores.  It’s a fair question, but the problem is that bus routes through parking lots are usually slow and often prone to delays, which inconveniences the transit riders with destinations elsewhere.  Delivering one passenger directly in front of a store might result in another passenger missing a connection needed to reach a place of work on time.  It becomes a Hobbesian choice for transit managers that is usually resolved in favor of curbside bus stops.)

Now that the developer and urbanist sides of the parking question have been introduced, we can look at how parking resolution is typically reached in the drivable suburban world.  Virtually all zoning codes specify minimum parking requirements, but far fewer put a cap on the maximum number of parking spaces.  That fact alone gives developers more power than urbanists.

Furthermore, the oft-stated goal of parking standards is to accommodate the peak day parking demand.  It’s a curious and perverse standard, putting the one-time convenience of the last driver to arrive on the busiest day of the year on a higher plane than the everyday convenience of transit riders, but it’s the standard we have.

But it needn’t be the standard that we keep forever.

Many, including StrongTowns, as an entry into the argument that we can survive with less parking, contend that we don’t even meet the busiest day standard with much accuracy.  They argue that many parking lots are less than fully utilized on the day after Thanksgiving.  So StrongTowns is retasking the name Black Friday to describe this phenomenon of demonstrable overparking.  As a reference both to the color of asphalt and to the land-use implications of too much parking, it seems a more reasonable use of “black”.

To make their point, StrongTowns use Black Friday to highlight the role of parking in our communities.  Taken from their words, “Black Friday Parking is a nationwide event drawing attention to the harmful nature of minimum parking requirements, which create a barrier for new local businesses and fill up our cities with empty parking spaces that don’t add value to our places.

“On Black Friday, people all across North America will snap photos of the (hardly full) parking lots in their community to demonstrate how unnecessary these massive lots are.  Participants will then upload those photos to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #blackfridayparking.  More can also be learned here.”

Unfortunately, I’ll be traveling between family holiday commitments on Black Friday, so will have limited opportunities to take photos of half-empty parking lots, although I may be able to sneak by a mall or two in the college town of Chico.

But I encourage those who care about their towns to look around on the day after Thanksgiving, to ponder how much parking we really need, and to follow the StrongTowns campaign on social media.  Even if you’re an urbanist of long standing, I promise the experience will still provide an eye-opening insight or two.

Next time, I’ll make one last visit to the “The Trouble with City Planning” by Kristina Ford.  I’ll highlight a flaw that marred the book for some, but also offered a worthwhile talking point.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Why Haystack Landing Can’t Be Everything to Everybody

Last time, I wrote about the tentatively-named Haystack Landing, a proposed mixed-use project, with residential over retail, midway between downtown Petaluma and the coming SMART train station.  Although I demurred slightly on the architecture, I was mostly thrilled with the project, with my principal wish being that ground-breaking could occur soon.

But, as with most land development projects, it’s inevitable that other folks won’t be as content.  Some will be querulous and others merely curious, but there will always be some who wish that their particular issue could have addressed differently.

Before, during, and after the public meeting last week, some of those concerns reached my ears.  In my role as an advocate for urbanism, I’ll try to address those concerns.

To be clear, I have no role in the Haystack Landing project.  The responses below are based solely on conversations with the project team and on knowledge gained from past projects.  Perhaps I didn’t sit at the table for Haystack Landing, but I’ve sat at enough tables to understand how the realities of zoning codes, construction financing, and marketplace preferences play out.

Why do the buildings top out at four stories?  More stories would put more people downtown: There are a several approaches that can be taken to answering this question, but I’ll tackle it through parking balance.

Each use, whether market-rate residential, affordable residential, or retail, has a parking requirement. With each home or retail space added, more parking is required, reducing the land available for the building footprint.  It becomes a dance to find the balance point between parking and building uses such that the site is fully used, and fully parked, in a form will satisfy the marketplace.

For Haystack Landing, the project team found their balance point at 140 homes plus about 20,000 square-feet of retail in four-story buildings with 180 surface parking stalls.  From my review, I have no reason to disagree with their conclusion.  If they had pushed the buildings higher, they would have needed more parking, for which there wasn’t room without eliminating building footprints.

Some may point out that structured parking could have increased the parking count without increasing the land area dedicated to parking, thereby allowing more building stories.  They’d be right, but the problem is that structured parking is expensive, perhaps $20,000 per parking space compared to $2,000 for a ground space.

Adding structured parking would significantly bump the sales prices, or rental rates, on the units, perhaps pushing those prices beyond what the market will bear.  From the early days of the recession until now, developers have reported that they can’t find a way to make structured parking pay except in the densest urban settings.  If the Haystack Landing team says that they found the same, I have no reason to dispute them.

But what if additional stories were committed to affordable units without associated parking?: This is an interesting question that forces me to dig deeper into the project.  There are four arguments against the suggestion.

First, although I’d like to believe otherwise, there may not be a market for affordable units with no parking.

Second, the assigned transects for the site (transects being the form-based code equivalents of zones which are used within the Central Petaluma Specific Plan) allow only four stories on much of the site, with six stories allowed only along the E. Washington Street frontage.  So a variance or zone change would be required to go above four stories.

Third, there is also no provision in the SmartCode for residential units without parking, so another variance would be required.

Fourth, the building code changes above four stories, requiring a more expensive form of construction.

So the taller buildings would become more expensive in order to add affordable units with an uncertain market.  That’s not a workable proposition.

Personally, I’m intrigued by the idea of a fifth or even sixth story along E. Washington Street, liking the image it would create for Petaluma.  I’d suggest that fourth floor homes become multi-story units internally, which would get around the parking issue.  But it still wouldn’t overcome the building code constraint.

Why can’t the project look more like downtown?:  The easy answer is that construction codes and economics have changed over the last century, with the money that used to go into elaborate facades instead going into seismic code compliance, fire suppression systems, handicapped access, and union wages.

But there is also the problem that downtown Petaluma doesn’t have a single style to which Haystack Landing could conform.  I love downtown, but it has a broad diverse range of

architectural styles, leaving current-day architects at a loss when it comes to matching downtown.  Anyone who argues that downtown Petaluma has a style is confusing familiarity and fondness for coherence.

What should be done to mitigate for the increased traffic?: This is a multi-faceted question.  To begin, it’s likely that congestion won’t change.  In the obverse side of the theory of induced traffic, if more traffic is added to an already congested street, more drivers would defer or delay trips, so

congestion would remain the same, although there is still the impact of more deferred or delayed trips.

Also, there aren’t many traffic improvements that can be made in the vicinity of Haystack Landing.  There is no room for a third lane on E. Washington Street.  The D Street Bridge constricts D Street to its current one lane.  And Lakeville doesn’t offer any opportunities either.

However, Haystack Landing, with its location and its restricted parking, will generate fewer trips than other residential projects.  Because of the way that trip data is collected from other projects, we don’t know what the likely Haystack Landing trip generation would be, but with ten daily trips per home being typical for single-family homes, seven or so trips from Haystack Landing would seem likely.  And that number would decrease as the urbanism increases around the project, allowing more daily chores to be completed on foot or by transit.

Despite this lower trip generation, Haystack Landing will pay the same traffic impact fee per unit as for an apartment with unlimited parking on the urban fringe.  State law allows cities to impose lower traffic impact fees for projects in urban settings, but Petaluma has chosen not to do so.

But as there are few opportunities for traffic improvements near Haystack Landing, it is likely that the traffic impact fees would be spent on improvements in the more suburban parts of the community.

So, the complete traffic answer is that Haystack Landing will generate fewer trips that other residential projects, but will pay for more than its fair share for city traffic improvements.  However, the improvements will likely occur elsewhere other than around Haystack Landing because there are few improvement opportunities near the project.  It’s an answer that makes my head spin.

Is it best for one developer to design all 140 units?: Admittedly, this is my question, although I never asked it of anyone because I already knew the answer.

Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of fine-grained urbanism, believing that many small projects serve cities better than a few large projects.  (Jane Jacobs made this argument in “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” and for me it remains true a half-century later.)

In a perfect world, I would prefer that different teams develop the two blocks that will result when the current block is divided by the new street.  Even though the massing of the two blocks would likely remain the similar given the constraints of the Station Area Master Plan and SmartCode, I think the different teams might generate solutions sufficiently different to meet Jacobs’ goal of a fine grain.

But I also understand the financial downside of having multiple development entities.  The costs of entitlement, including CEQA compliance, aren’t halved when the project area is halved.  Indeed, those costs may not change much at all.  So the total costs of entitlement, which can be a significant percentage of the overall development costs, could be doubled if the blocks were developed separately.

As much as I think that fine-grained urbanism would be better for our cities, our current methods of entitlement and environmental protection work against it.

Why is there is an old warehouse on the Copeland Street frontage?: the aerial photo at the beginning of this post shows two warehouses along Copeland Street.  Pacifica Companies has acquired one of those warehouses, will demolish it, and will replace it with new construction.

But no purchase agreement was reached on the other warehouse, so it will remain in place, with the Haystack Landing buildings constructed on both sides of it.

In January, I noted to the Petaluma City Council that this situation is why eminent domain exists and that the City should find a way to acquire the property and to resell it to Pacifica Companies so it could become part of Haystack Landing.

I still feel that way, but I also see the possibility that, when the warehouse finally goes away years from now, a creative development team will find a quirky way to use the odd parcel, resulting in a solution that future generations of Petalumans will find endearing.  Good urbanism sometimes works out that way.

So, I’m less bothered by the warehouse than I was six months ago.

Any other thoughts on Haystack Landing?  I suggest contacting the developer, but I also remain always willing to chat about urbanist projects.

HBO is currently airing an original program that will seemingly impart lessons relevant to urbanism.  I’m intrigued by the plot and by the learning opportunities.  I’ll share what I know in my next post.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Highlighting the Guideposts on the Path toward a Better Future

The Petaluma City Council holds an annual goal-setting session, a seven-hour Saturday marathon that was conducted a few days ago.

Several Councilmembers occasionally follow this blog, but I still thought it appropriate to remind the Council about some of the goals I’ve suggested for Petaluma over past few years, while also noting a couple of more recent opportunities.

Following is the text of the comments that I had intended to make at the goal-setting session a few days ago.  I write “intended” because the Mayor, in a justified effort to keep the day on schedule, reduced the time allotted to each speaker from the three minutes that I had expected to only two minutes.  It was a change that so flustered me that I dropped my notes on the head of the Economic Development Director.  Upon recovery, I was able to adjust my presentation on the fly, hitting all seven points below, but reducing my intention from advocacy of a solution to identification of the issue.

Nonetheless, I’ll share my entire intended presentation below.

“I appreciate the opportunity to offer some thoughts this morning.  I’ll try to make good use of my three minutes.

“#1 - The SMART train is now less than two years from arriving.  And yet the key parcel of land that should serve the station, providing homes for those who choose to use the train for a daily commute, sits filled with railroad construction materials.  Nor, based on the most recent information I’ve received, has SMART even begun seeking a developer for the site.  The only small concession that SMART has reportedly made is to plan a gravel parking lot for some of the hoped-for riders.

“Petaluma is a cool place.  SMART can make it cooler.   But for that to happen, the town must have the elements in place to facilitate the change, including transit-oriented development on the SMART parcel.

“I understand that the burden lies with SMART.  But I ask the City to push SMART in every way possible to let the train make Petaluma a cooler place.

“#2 – Moving a block further from the train station, I understand that the new project on the Haystack Landing site is moving nicely through the conceptual design process.  I ask the City to facilitate the project in every way possible.  A constructed project on the Haystack Landing site isn’t a substitute for development on the SMART parcel, but it’s a start.

“Also, I understand that the Haystack Landing project currently excludes one of the warehouses at the D Street corner because the two parties have been unable to reach agreement on price.  But if the warehouse site is excluded from the project, the SMART Code may result in the site being forever under-utilized.

“I understand that City resources are limited, but this situation is why eminent domain exists.  Securing the warehouse site for the Haystack Landing project is a win-win-win opportunity.  The Haystack developer would have a better project.  The warehouse owners, even if they don’t see it today, would benefit.   And the community would have a more complete development to pass onto posterity.

“#3 – Moving just slightly further from the SMART station, only four short blocks away is the Sonoma Marin Fairgrounds.  I know the lease with the Fair Board doesn’t expire for another eight years, but eight years can pass awfully quickly in land use.

“I’m working with a citizens group that has been developing design concepts for the Fairgrounds.  We expect to have a plan to share publicly within six weeks.

“It’s time to open the Fairgrounds process to the public, both for those who have been studying the possibilities and for those eager to become educated about the opportunities.

“The Fairgrounds has the potential to transform Petaluma.  Let’s begin the public discussion.

“#4 – One of the best land-use efforts in the past year has been the progress of the Keller Court Commons community.  It’s not a footprint that I’d support throughout the community, but it’s a great adaption to a challenging site and will provide a fine living experience for the its residents.

“However, I’ve chatted with the developer and learned that the Petaluma entitlement process was more difficult and convoluted than in any other city where he’s done similar projects.

“We should remedy that.  A complete upgrade to the zoning code to facilitate new and creative land-use ideas should be undertaken.  Once again, I know dollars are tight, but this is a matter of preparing the community for the 21st century.

“#5 – It’s been over two years since the Transit Advisory Committee realized to its surprise that the East Washington Place shopping center was nearing completion without a new bus stop.  The TAC suggestion of a bus stop condition of approval had been waylaid because the committee lacked the official power to propose conditions of approval.

“The TAC, Transit Manager, City Engineer, and developer rolled up sleeves and found a solution.  It was an imperfect solution, one that required purchasing more buses and that continues to inconvenience riders to this day, but it was better than having no bus stop.

“The TAC then moved onto the next task, securing for themselves the authority to propose conditions of approval to avoid future missteps.  But after two years and numerous discussions, the topic still hasn’t reached the City Council.  This task must be completed in 2015.  Transit will be too much a part of Petaluma’s future not to give it a voice in land-use planning.

“#6 – To conclude with an easier challenge, block parties still occupy a fuzzy role within the Municipal Code, officially prohibited in most locations, but often proceeding anyway.  The responses that potential organizers receive when asking for party approval from City officials range from “No way” to “Well, okay, as long as you don’t tell anyone I said so”, depending on the official to whom the organizer speaks.

“The range of responses is unfortunate, but what’s even worse is that none of the responses serve the city.  The best response should be “As long as public safety in ensured, we strongly encourage block parties.”   Let’s make the changes to the Municipal Code to get to that best response.

“Thanks for your time and attention.

“P.S. (if time permits) #7 – Parking may be the biggest challenge in trying to reclaim our cities from the automobile.  The final report on the Station Area Plan notes the need for a parking management plan, an action that other cities have taken to great benefit.  It’s time for the City, whether through staff or with a committee of citizens, to begin thinking about long-term parking strategies.”

The remainder of the day was long and stultifying.  I was the only member of the public to remain the entire time.  As I explained to a Councilmember after the session, every time I grew tired of the warm room and the roar of the air conditioning system, I looked down the agenda, spotted something of interest perhaps 20 minutes away, and decided I could stay a bit longer.

Of the issues I raised, all were touched upon by the City Council during their discussions, although some references were more oblique than others.  There were a number of Fairgrounds comments, which I’ll share another time.  Although I suspect my positions of advocacy, both at the session and before, had helped shape the discussion, I felt that only one issue was discussed solely because I’d pushed it there.

And that issue was block parties.  I’m convinced that my repeated comments on the value of clarifying the block party rules, and the dogged efforts of one reader to keep the issue in front of the City Council, were the only reasons that block parties were discussed near the end of the day.

And the outcome was favorable, with the Police Chief and much of the City Council declaring their support for block parties.  However, the Council was uncertain about the best role for the City to take, so tossed the issue back to the City Manager for further staff consideration.  I’ll continue my involvement on the topic.

Similarly, I’ll continue my advocacy on the other issues I raised.  Saturday provided a few glimmers of hope for urbanism but, as always, further work remains to be done.

Next time, I’ll return to the “Intro to Urbanism”, exploring the role of buildings in urbanism.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Failing to Accommodate a Better Parking Solution

In my New Year’s resolutions for 2014, I committed to delving deeply into a pair of urbanist topics of personal interest, senior living and parking.  It took me much of the year to get around to the senior living issue, but I finally tackled the subject in a number of posts in September and October.  (This one and this one were the most popular of the senior living posts.)  My coverage wasn’t complete, so it’s a subject to which I must return in future posts, but at least I gained a foothold.

I didn’t do as well on parking, which is a shame because it’s a subject that’s at least as important to urbanism as senior living.  (I continue to be stunned when I ponder the sea change that occurred in the 20th century, when the concept that customers would only patronize a shop if a free holding space was provided for their 3,000 pounds of steel and plastic.  As other observers have noted, the 20th century was the first time in history when we gave greater consideration to our machines than to our children.)

Nor will I be able to embark upon my consideration of parking during December as I already have a well-populated writing plan for the holiday season.  But at least I know what resolution will be on the top of my 2015 list.

However, I can offer a parking insight today that will help set the scene for my 2015 efforts.

A significant change that has begun to take hold in the world of parking is a decoupling between homes and parking.  Twenty years ago, virtually any new home that one could buy would be bundled with a parking space or two.  Both zoning codes and the market demanded it.

But gradually the idea took root that some buyers no longer wanted the parking space and would prefer to purchase a home that didn’t include the cost of the parking space.

In rough numbers, a surface parking place has a cost of $5,000 to $10,000, which includes both the land cost and the pavement.  For structured parking, the cost would be at least $20,000, with much higher number possible depending on the structure.

Including a $20,000 cost for a parking place, a similar cost for a car, and reasonable allowances for insurance, gasoline, maintenance, and parking when away from home, a homeowner could spend perhaps $300 per month on bus passes, ZipCars, Uber, and the occasional car rental and still come out ahead.  It’s a trade-off that interests an increasing number of home-buyers.

So many recent buildings in urban settings include two types of parcels, individual living units and individual parking places.  Buyers can decide how many parking places to include in their purchase, much like ordering sides for a meal.

It’s a very reasonable and appropriate solution to parking in modern cities.  Except when reason falls apart.

In recent years, voter-approved parcel taxes have become a common approach to funding specific needs through increased property taxes.  (Personally, I still favor ad valorem taxes and don’t understand the lean toward parcel taxes, but that’s not today’s topic.)

In 2008, San Francisco voters approved a $259 parcel tax for the San Francisco Unified School District.  And the County Assessor began collecting the tax on residences and parking places.  Someone who owned a home and a parking place in a multi-family building with a modern, leading-edge approach to parking paid for the privilege with a new tax that’s twice the amount charged to single-family home with a three-car garage.

It would seem to be fixable problem.  And indeed San Francisco City College when faced with the same situation found a way to refund the second tax payment.  But somehow the Unified School District thus far hasn’t gotten to the same solution, instead trying to pass the buck to the Assessor.

I don’t want to paint this situation as another form of anti-urban bias.  It’s fairer to describe it as an unintended consequence at the confluence of property taxes and emerging urban thinking.  Even if legislative action is required, I hope and expect that a remedy will soon be in place.  But it illustrates the myriad unexpected challenges to be overcome in moving to a more urban world. 

Urbanism is never easy.

Next time, I’ll write about the “urbanist” solution being proposed for the former site of Candlestick Park.  The quotation marks should offer an insight to my thoughts.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Getting from Today to TOD – Parking

Urbanists have visions of the future.  Visions that may be twenty years or farther into the future, but are nonetheless in perfect focus.

Where the focus is often less clear is on the intervening years.  The years of awkward transition between a drivable suburban present and a walkable urban future.

A frequent urbanist vision is of transit-oriented development (TOD).   An urbanist sees a delightful street scene with refreshed commuters disembarking from sleek trains and walking or biking contentedly toward nearby homes.  There would be abundant opportunities to make nightly purchases in streetfront stores or to sit in neighborhood pubs, sharing news of the day.

But even if a TOD could be magically plopped into place tomorrow, the reality is still that the surrounding community wouldn’t be ready to accommodate a TOD in its midst.   Last May, I wrote about new development being a rent in the fabric of the city, a wound that takes time to heal.  A TOD, no matter how well-designed and executed, disrupts the existing day-to-day life of a city.

Finding ways to heal those wounds, to facilitate the transition to a TOD future, is key to a successful TOD.

The City of Petaluma is currently is the final stages of a master plan for the Petaluma Station Area, a possible TOD adjoining the SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) station that will soon be built near downtown Petaluma.  The draft master plan provides an example of the transitional strategies that are required to implement a TOD.  Today, I’ll begin writing about transitional parking.  There are other issues, such as retail demand, that I’ll cover in future posts.

The initial SMART vision for Petaluma had a fully-conceived vision for commuter parking.  There were to be two stations in town.  One would be near the historic downtown and would be suited for pedestrian, bicycle, and transit access.  The other would be near the north end of town and would include extensive parking.  It was a reasonable strategy.

But as often happens, even reasonable strategies can come unwound.  In this case, economic hard times reduced the sales tax revenues that were to fund the construction of the new train.  SMART had to adjust their plans.  One change was the deferral of the north station.  What remained was the downtown station that hadn’t been intended to provide much parking.

That was the challenge that faced the consulting team, headed by Opticos Design of Berkeley, who was hired by the City of Petaluma to prepare a TOD master plan.

Before discussing the Opticos solution, I’ll offer a quick summary of the lands encompassed by the master plan.  For those who know Petaluma, this is information you already know.  But for others, you may wish to download the final draft master plan.  An overview of the TOD site can be seen on page 2-6.

The potential site includes three large blocks of land.  Immediately adjoining the historic train station and the site of new train station, and further bounded by E. Washington Street, Copeland Street, and D Street, is land owned by SMART.  The land is currently being used as a staging area for rail construction.  SMART intends to seek a developer for the land after rail construction is complete.

Next closest to the station is the Haystack Landing site, bounded by E. Washington Street, Weller Street,  D Street, and Copeland Street.  Earlier development plans for the property failed and the land has been in a bankruptcy court action for several years.  Except for a pair of metal buildings in one corner, the site is vacant.

Furthest away from the station, bounded by E. Washington Street, Weller Street, and the Petaluma River, is a shopping center that was recently renamed River Plaza, but is still commonly known as Golden Eagle.  Redevelopment of this site under the Petaluma Station Area would result in a higher level of economic use, but will likely happen after the other two sites because of the productive use already in place.

The concept that Opticos proposed to address the parking concern was an incremental development of the SMART land.  If the initial development can be limited to the areas closest to the station, E. Washington, and D Street, much of the internal area of the parcel can be used for parking on an interim basis.  By my calculations, it seems that 300 to 400 parking spaces could be created.

The plan on page 2-11 shows a possible overall development of the site.  To understand the interim parking thinking, look at the parking in the middle of the two halves of the SMART site.  Those two lots would be extended toward the central street and to the street to the southwest, which is Copeland Street.

The expectation would be that the parking areas along the street frontages would eventually be replaced by the final buildings as the initial buildings were fully absorbed.  The hope is that the north Petaluma station will have been built by that time, reducing the need for parking at the downtown station.

But there is one other possibility.  If there continues to be strong demand for parking at the downtown station, one or both of the parking areas in the middle of the building sites could be converted to parking structures.  The cost would be significant, but would only be incurred if there was a need.

Do these parking strategies offer a good transitional solution?  Absolutely.  Does it mean that we needn’t worry about the parking issue again?  Not even close.  There are many possibilities for the ship of good intentions to be driven onto the lee shore of real-world issues.  I’ll talk about some of those of possibilities in my next post. 

But for today, I’d suggest that you scan the draft master plan.  It’s a large document and I don’t seriously suggest you read every word, but read as much as holds your interest.

If being a part of bringing this vision to fruition is of interest to you, including the interim parking concepts, you may wish to attend the final meeting of the citizens’ advisory committee.  It will be held this Thursday, February 21, at 6pm at the Community Center.  Everyone is welcome to attend.  The master plan will then head to the Planning Commission and City Council, where your attendance could also be valuable.

Moving from today to TOD is a complex subject.  Hopefully, Petaluma can provide lessons for the other cities in the region.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)