How much parking do you really need?
Austin can learn from Portland…again.
Austin and Portland have many similarities, including the “Keep Austin Weird” slogan that some argue Austin borrowed from Portland. The weirdest and perhaps most audacious aspect of Portland that Austin could emulate is its parking regulations.
In 2014, Portland had 40+ new developments that had ZERO parking. ZERO! Now that is weird, if not crazy, many Austin neighborhoods would argue. Yet, this is not a matter of policy but rather a demand. The trend in carless buildings has continued, despite neighborhoods concerns of runoff onto the streets.
Two examples of individuals who opted not to have a car include “Patricia Cates who lives near downtown Portland. She’s single, and works for a local non-profit. Evan Burton is married and lives on Portland’s east side. He teaches college classes and works weatherizing homes. They both live in apartments, and neither of them owns a car.
“Many of the people here don’t drive, and least our immediate neighbors that we know of, do not drive. And we do not drive, no,” Burton says.
“I love my lifestyle. I don’t like to get pushy, but when people ask me about it, I explain how much less expensive it is, and less stressful it is, and how I lost 20 pounds the first year, because I was walking everywhere,” Cates says.
Burton and Cates have one other thing in common: the buildings they live in don’t have parking places. Developers are betting that many more Portlanders like them are looking to rent new apartments.” (https://www.opb.org/news/article/no-room-parking-many-new-apartment-projects/)
Other cities around the world have adopted “Parking Entrapment Zones” where a driver is penalized for bringing their cars into the zone. It is a disincentive for drivers and an incentive to use public transportation.
Austin has several methods for parking reductions, but most are within the Central Business District (CBD) or at Transit Oriented Development (TODs) sites. There are provisions in the land development code that allow for reductions such as 1) for every micro unit a developer must provide only 25% of a parking space, or 2) the Planning Director can administratively allow more than a 40% reduction.
Given that the Austin Housing Blueprint specifically calls out the costs to build parking as a major impediment to affordable housing, there is still not enough incentive for developers to attempt to do a carless community outside the CBD or TOD. Perhaps the Chicon Microunit Carless Community will be the first.
