In Canada, only people who own a condo in the building can buy a parking spot. That rule doesn't exist in the US or UK?
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It depends not on the country but the city I believe. A quick look on real estate search engines, such as MLS shows LOTS of stand alone parking spots for sale in Toronto in condo buildings.
To me, this story should be a lesson for future city planning.
This article was written about taxi medallions about 20 years ago, methinks.
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I'm curious as to whether reduced parking minimums in new multi-family construction are really responsible for a shortage of parking spaces. Maybe it is true (and it is certainly intuitive), but urbanists say that this is not true at all, and that parking minimums drive up the cost of new apartments or condos where land is scarce.
My own experience seems to back up the urbanists. I live in Washington, DC. A few years ago, I lived in one of those over-priced new apartment buildings right over a Metro stop in Columbia Heights (a neighborhood that has developed rapidly over the last 15 years, largely around access to the Metro, and where prices have increased sharply). As required, my building had three levels of underground parking. And even though the complex was completely occupied, the parking garage was more than half empty at all times (I myself didn't have a car).
Across the street was "DC USA," a shopping complex that included a Target and a Best Buy, which the city lured to the site partially by building two levels of underground parking. The shopping center is usually viewed as a great success, but the parking is clearly over-built. I have never seen the second level used at all, and politicians and bloggers regularly throw around ideas for how to use the second level (bowling alley? skating rink?).
But parking is still very expensive everywhere in the city. I'm not sure exactly why, but I don't think it's because of a lack of parking minimums.
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With the rise of ride sharing and driverless vehicles there will be less need for parking spaces in the coming years. I expect the cost of parking to decrease over time.
The article addresses this issue.
Kate Murphy..."Experts say this is because of an ever-declining supply brought on, in part, by developers who have successfully lobbied municipalities to do away with regulations to build sufficient (if any) parking"...There is no such thing as "sufficient" parking. It is a want, not a need like food or air. To imply there is any 1 correct number of parking spaces people want discounts everything about the place...can you walk, bike, ride transit? is it free or at a cost? can people afford a car or two? Please don't equate preference with requirement.
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You're mincing words. With the exception of water and air, you could say this about anything. Even food, which frankly really just means access to potatoes if we are talking about survival.
Sufficient in economic terms reflects more or less supply relative to demand. That fact doesn't require parking demand to be inelastic.
I'm a Visiting Nurse and it always amazes me that most big, expensive high rise apartment buildings in cities like Hackensack and Fort Lee, NJ alot 5 to 10 "visitor parking" spots. I realize it's all about the money.... but the absurdity of it. When I must visit patients in these buildings I say a prayer to the parking gods beforehand!
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ALL of the real estate in or around the Boston area is being eyeballed as future parking lots, preferably multi-level ones. Broken lawn chairs, cracked plastic cooler and old, nasty bbq not included. (These items are often used to save your shoveled out parking space after a snow storm in Boston).
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I have a Condo in downtown San Diego with 2 spaces and no car. I can rent them out to other building residents for $200 a month each. Even after taxes it is nice to have that cash.
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This reminds me of a story an Oakland friend sent me this summer: a couple bought all the common areas in gated, wealthy Presidio Terrace in San Francisco for $90,100 at auction; the community residents had neglected to pay the $14 annual bill for 30 years. One of the couple's ideas is to sell/rent the common space in Presidio Terrace for parking.
Rich SF residents hire big-time help to get their street back: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Rich-SF-residents...
"Unless they can show clearly and convincingly that proper procedures were not followed, I see no reason to rescind the sale,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who was recently visited by the homeowners’ team of advocates. "Sales like this happen every day to all kinds of people and businesses,” he said. It certainly does when they fall 30 years behind on their property taxes. That’s what the owners of 35 multimillion-dollar Presidio Terrace homes managed to do when it came to paying the $14 annual bill on their small, gated private street, sidewalks and other common areas. When the total in back taxes, penalties and interest hit $994, the city put the property on the online auction block, unbeknownst to the homeowners association. Cheng and Lam outbid several other parties."
Former Presidio Terrace resident Sen. Dianne Feinstein is fighting the sale: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Feinstein-urges-SF-supervisor...
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"“You don’t know what freedom is until you get in your car, drive over to the supermarket, pick up a container of milk, drive home and it’s over,” he said."
This is surely the most pathetic thing I have read all day. What was that again about how city dwelling beats living in the suburbs nine ways to Sunday?
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Agreed. The individual's american dream has turned into a nightmare for society.
“You don’t know what freedom is until you get in your car, drive over to the supermarket, pick up a container of milk, drive home and it’s over,” he said.
What is this, 1955?
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I know, this guy sounds clueless. It is the rare area in Brooklyn that requires a car to get milk.
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It's perfectly ordinary every day life in 90% of the USA (and I believe, also Canada, Australia, etc.).
Most people have not just a parking space, but an entire driveway and a two car garage at the end of it! and you can come and go as you please, when you please.
It's only amazing to urban hipsters.
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This cannot work in NYC. If someone parks in "Your spot". who will ticket him NYPD ?? If something happens to the renters 's car while parked, who insures against damage??What happens if you pay a tow guy to remove an illegal parker? He might just do a lot of damage no??? Hey folks, this is NYC All you NYT attorneys out there remember bailments ???
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Crazy how a parking space (approximately 8ft x 9ft or 72 square feet) goes for $37,000 – let alone over $600,000. Looks like I have another possible investment to research.
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A space may be 8ft wide however an average-sized SUV is about 15-16 feet long so a space is probably almost twice the size you've calculated unless it only fits a Smart-for-Two or a few motorcycles.
This is rife with the threat of insider trading and fraud. This must be highly regulated and taxed to ensure fairness.
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Considering the worrying news this week that a suspected terrorist was possibly a driver for Uber, maybe demand for personal parking spaces will actually increase. How much would you pay for personal security and privacy? Cycle lanes as a target is also a concern for traffic planning.
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I am not too fond of those selling their parking spaces just because they don't have a vehicle to park there with. Those spaces were meant for residents and they should be used only by the residents especially of that's what the property is for. I feel that in some of the complexes or projects, doing this might actually be illegal. I'm sure that if you don't need the parking space, you can always say you don't to the owner or landlord, and they won't have you pay for a space you don't use. Personally, it would be good to have a place to live that include parking especially since having this would mean not having to get up just to move the car due to alternate side or any other parking regulation that go into affect the next day, which I would find to be annoying and a hassle. However, I can't understand those who claim that new housing should have little to no parking minimums even though it will mean fewer vehicles parking on the streets. Also, not everybody has the luxury to live in neighborhoods where everything is in walking distance considering that they are usually expensive to live in, but this is something that the anti-car fanatics will never seem to understand. Another thing is that transit deserts do exist in NYC itself and the city lines aren't where the subway lines, which is why those living in those areas oppose congestion pricing in being not just a regressive tax, but also a punishment for having such little options to getting around without driving.
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People who live in cities still need cars or SUVs to travel to other places and to transport more and larger objects than can reasonably be fit into a cab or a subway and need a place to store those cars even if they never drive them downtown. As is the case with most zealots the anti-car people are shortsighted.
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Right because the handful of times I need a car is worth the thousands of dollars to buy, maintain, park, and insure one
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Projects' by-laws will indicate legally permissible conveyance and use of limited common elements such as parking spots, storage spaces, etc. If resident homeowners want to restrict such sales/activity, they would need to follow the protocols in place, if any, to make those changes.
In the buildings around here, the parking spot(s) come(s) with the residential purchase (included in the price) so if you don't use them, you may be able to lease them to others (but not always). However, when you sell your unit, you have to sell your spots.
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enjoy the income while you can. hopefully in a few years car ownership and the need for parking will decline greatly as self driving ride-sharing vehicles become the norm.
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Yes, and in a few years, everyone will have a flying car, and a robot cleaning lady.
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Wow, people *really* love their cars. Cities that tout themselves as transit first are a bit of a joke. We need to be limiting cars in cities and building up public transportation (that most of us use anyway). People who really need to park and have all that money can move to the burbs and park all over the place. The rest of us are ready for the next round of urban flight, please.
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Maybe limiting cars entering the core areas during peak hours is a viable idea however not everyone who needs to use a car to move in directions and with more cargo than a subway or bus can handle has money to burn and/or wants to live in a suburb. Get over yourself, Mo.
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My father and mother used my baby carriage to go shopping with. They (and later I) pushed it to the market, loaded it up, and pushed it home. My memories of this: horrible, time-wasting and limited supply of food choice. Living in a house now with a garage, I still feel like I'm on vacation 24-hours a day with a place to park!! Now that my wife can only walk enough to get to the car, the burdens of old age are less with a parking place.
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This is something else some of the self-centered self-impressed commenters here have overlooked: the needs of those whose ability to use public transit are limited by infirmity/age/immobility/ disability.
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They sound like ideal drivers!
At least your folks had a real, good-sized baby CARRIAGE with 4 substantial tires. It could hold a really fair amount of stuff.
But who has an actual baby CARRIAGE today? they don't sell them at Babies R Us. They are antiques.
For people in urban areas who do not have cars -- at best, you might have a flimsy wire cart, that holds 3 bags of groceries -- at worst, you are hand-carrying plastic sacks over your arms...miserable, heavy, likely to break....and of course, impossible for anyone disabled, elderly, frail, etc.
And if you must hand-carry all your groceries & toiletries home....you can't buy a two week supply at one time, necessitating multiple shopping trips with smaller loads. OK for a healthy young singleton. A nightmare for a family with small children -- and a triple nightmare for anyone elderly or infirm.
To some degree, today you can order things online -- but at a huge cost in terms of shipping fees....the items are nearly always at premium prices, no bargains or sales or coupons....you don't get to pick out your produce....and it is appalling wasteful in terms of energy, carbon, pollution, excessive packaging, etc.
People talk about cities being so great for the elderly....well, the elderly who are spry and can walk long distances. If you have ANY disability, frailty, balance problems, etc. -- having to walk for blocks or take public transit or stand outdoors in bitter cold is a NIGHTMARE. Far easier to get inside a nice warm car, and drive up to the door!
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Have to agree with K10031. If I lived in NYC, or San Francisco I wouldn't own a car either. I live in Phoenix were it is necessity, but am fortunate enough to have a garage.
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I lived 12 years in San Francisco and discovered the answer is the Smart Car. This little beauty gets into spaces others only dream of. I never wanted for a space.
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... as long as your grocery shopping amounts to no more than will fit in a couple of small bags it's fine, and as long as you don't run into any obstacles much larger than a canteloupe, otherwise bye-bye to your microcar.
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I totally agree that “You don’t know what freedom is until you get in your car, drive over to the supermarket, pick up a container of milk, drive home and it’s over,”. Every time I drive up to our house and pull straight into our driveway I look at all the street parking spaces taken and think how fortunate we are to have guaranteed parking just steps from our front door. In our neighborhood such a convenience is the exception rather than the rule. The value of our house is significantly higher than the vast majority of homes that do not have off street parking. Living in the city comes with its challenges but for us parking at home is not one of them. We are thankful! Parking is a major issue in most NYC neighborhoods.
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You don't know what REAL freedom is until you walk out your door, use your own feet to walk or pedal your bike down to the supermarket, pick up a container of milk, then walk or pedal home, all the time thinking about the money you're saving from not having to finance a car, pay for gas, insurance, and maintenance, and a horribly expensive parking spot. I feel fortunate to live in a city where I don't have to carry the burden of a car and worry about things like parking, and I shake my head over people who feel they do need a car, and create danger, noise and carnage for the rest of us.
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Well done. I didn't think it possible to argue about the relative goodness of a parking place, but here it is. Why be happy when you can argue?
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I'm happy for your good health and good fortune, but not everyone is that lucky.
I'm in my 60's and in poor health, so walking or bicycling to the grocery store is not physically possible for me. I live in the Northwest where it can rain 6 months of the year, so even a motorbike is barely practical, even if my reflexes were what they were 20 years ago. (And they certainly ain't)
I've owned the same well-kept Chevy HHR for many years, it still gets close to 30mpg, it has room for almost any shopping trip, and yet in well over 8 years I just reached 16,000 miles -total- since I bought it used.
I've also been a fine (and very lucky) driver: I haven't had an accident in over 30 years, and only one moving violation in the last 27 years. (I failed to come to a "complete stop" at a stop sign, at least in the eyes of the policeman who stopped me)
In our society today I see too many people making snap judgements about how others behave when they have no actual knowledge of how we all differ in life and circumstances. I wish you much luck and continued happiness, but please stop judging others by your own standards.
I do need a car, but the "danger, noise and carnage" I create exist in your mind - not in real life.
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