[ThePadawan]

From my European point of view, I find the whole hangup about the parking space regulations very interesting.

Here in Zurich, there are the same sort of complaints about parking for new buildings going up, however there is now a different trend: Because rent for the parking space is typically charged separately from the apartment's rent, some parking space simply can't be rented out because residents don't have cars.

In case you speak German and are interested in this sort of stuff, the regulations are available at https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/content/dam/stzh/portal/Deutsch... .

It also shows a table on page 3 that explains how you actually are allowed and required to build less and less parking spaces the closer you get to the city center, so much so that if you look at the maps on pages 6 to 7, you can see that that grey area allows <= 10% of the parking of the white area.

[jaclaz]

Just to confirm the European viewpoint, it is pretty much normal in Italy, France and Spain to have similar requirements.

But they are "logical" and at least here in cities, beyond and besides the building codes, having more parking space can be a resource, i.e. unused/excess parking places are commonly rented as there is anyway great scarcity of them for the people leaving in historical buildings that of course at the time they were built had no such requirements.

Of course it is a cost since, just like it is in the US, in the words of the architect:

>But wait, there’s more! That parking space for each unit either has to be at ground level (which is the most valuable real estate on the whole project), or it has to be above or below ground.

we cannot make them float in the air ;).

And of course requirements are not the same in city centres as they are in the outskirts, where areas are larger and building density allowed is much lower.

I don't fully agree with the added cost for parking to be the main reason for high costs of the building, I find the culprit to be more "the market" and also (within limits) the higher standards (and expectations of the customers).

I heve seen dramatic increasings in the costs of plumbing (not only the plumbing in itself, but also the kind of stuff that is installed, "design" basins, taps, showers, etc.), and electricity (here it is BOTH pricey switches, plugs, etc, and greatly increased number of them), besides safety related items.

As a side note, and it depends of course on specific zones, having an underground parking under the building may actually help with seismic compliance and with getting rid of radon, so some of it is not only "added cost", the real cost issues come when the size of the parking is big enough to "trigger" stricter fire safety provisions.

The EXACT same thing happened/is happening here, all the part starting from:

> All that was manageable to an extent before the crash of 2008.

is entirely accurate on this side of the pond, and has been described perfectly.

Before or around 2008 you couldn't find reliable people/contractors because they were 100% busy (while you could find a lot of only half-professionals), now you cannot find them simply because they became almost extincted.

[kpil]

Having lived in both central Stockholm and central Madrid, I wholeheartedly support the requirements for parking spaces. People will own cars, and they need to be somewhere.

The regulation could be relaxed to allow separate garages or parking lots within a reasonable walking distance, but the books should be balanced.

In Stockholm some builders have argued that people might soon drive electric box carts or some other environmental camouflage for getting rid of the parking lots and cram in more expensive flats.

This spin was successful in one area but the sales prices were as high as usual and the savings where just added to the builders profit which is considerable to begin with.

[Decade]

I wholehearted disagree with regulations that require parking spaces. People are less likely to own cars if they knew they were paying extra to park them. Parking spaces should have prices, so we can use the market to distribute them in their scarcity. We call that: unbundled parking.[0]

As it is, paid parking is being tremendously undercut by free parking. People will go very far out of their way, roaming the streets for hours every week looking for a rare free parking spot, but there is almost no will to build a guaranteed spot in a paid parking structure.

This contributes to traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, wear on infrastructure, noxious gases emitted in residential neighborhoods, and poisonous relations between neighbors.

A related issue is that cars require a tremendous amount of space for what they provide, and there is no way we can afford to build enough spaces for all the cars that we think we can own because the parking is free. Even if the parking was adequate when new, it is not adequate anymore. And even when new, adequate parking was enormously expensive.[1]

My own neighborhood in San Francisco was built in the 1950s for single-family, single-earner households. Then women joined the workforce. Then children grew up needing cars. Then families doubled up in one house, or landlords turned the homes into rooming houses; and a house with a 1-car garage is now associated with 5 cars or more.

The price to sell is not directly connected to the cost to build.[2] Depending on the location, I think the no-parking micro-unit is actually more valuable to me than the suburban mansion, if it means I can reach everything I need by foot or bicycle and avoid paying all the fees and wasted time in traffic of car or bus.

I don’t care whether the developer makes a profit; except insofar as a developer should be paid for doing work that I think benefits society, and also as most of the income goes to the developer’s investors, that is, schoolteacher pension funds and such.

[0] http://www.thegreatermarin.org/blog/2015/8/8/unbundling-park...

[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/parking/

[2] https://artplusmarketing.com/market-rate-housing-isnt-a-bad-...

[jaclaz]

>This contributes to traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, wear on infrastructure, noxious gases emitted in residential neighborhoods, and poisonous relations between neighbors.

Which are exactly the problems that in a perfect world where ALL cars have their own spot to be parked at near home (and near office, etc.) would not exist, and that can be solved EITHER by making adequate parking spots OR getting rid of the cars.

I presume that if every home owner signs an affidavit where he/she promises he/she would NOT ever buy or use a car near the house, the parking area requirements could be lowered.

As you might know in Japan they do something slightly different: http://www.reinventingparking.org/2014/06/japans-proof-of-pa...

[Decade]

>>This contributes to traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, wear on infrastructure, noxious gases emitted in residential neighborhoods, and poisonous relations between neighbors.

>Which are exactly the problems that in a perfect world where ALL cars have their own spot to be parked at near home (and near office, etc.) would not exist, and that can be solved EITHER by making adequate parking spots OR getting rid of the cars.

The perfect world where every car has a parking spot without traffic, infrastructure, etc., CANNOT exist. We need to get rid of the cars.

https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21720269-dont-let-pe...