Parking Policy for Housing Affordability and Car-lite Households
Unbundling: Freedom to Opt Out of Parking
There is one measure to enhance affordability in new market rate residential units that can be done immediately and at no cost: enabling residents of new developments to opt out paying for a parking space. As cities reduce parking requirements (now underway in Santa Cruz), we need to ensure that the savings to developers from lowered parking costs gets passed on to the residents. The best way to do this is to unbundle the cost of parking from the cost of renting or owning a unit.
Studies of developments that allow tenants to opt out of purchasing parking show reduced vehicle ownership and significantly lower rents and purchase prices. Gabbe & Pierce (2017) found that bundling the cost of a parking space adds an average of 17% to a unit’s rent.
A major cost for affordable housing projects is the requirement to provide parking spaces, much of which goes unused. Willson, O’Connor and Hajjiri studied affordable housing developments in San Diego and found that half the parking spaces were unoccupied.
In Santa Cruz, students of UCSC Environmental Studies Professor Adam Millard-Ball surveyed overnight parking at large market-rate housing developments. They found a third or more of unoccupied spaces (see graph). Demand for parking at these developments would be even lower if the tenants paid separately for a parking space.
Want to reduce traffic congestion? Reduce vehicle ownership.
San Francisco requires new development to allow residents to opt out of parking. A study found there found that vehicle ownership in buildings with unbundled parking and car-sharing was 25% lower than in buildings with bundled parking. The increased congestion on our streets is directly caused by the incentive to own a car inherent in bundled parking. LATEST NEWS: a study by Adam Millard-Ball et al, showing that access to parking fosters vehicle ownership and driving.
For unbundling parking to be optimized, there needs to be access to amenities nearby, and good transit. Downtown and transit corridors are good candidates for unbundling.
What About Spillover Parking?
Allowing residents to opt out of paying for parking is an incentive for residents with cars to parking on neighboring streets. To avoid this impact, cities enact residential overnight parking permit programs. The number of permits issued can be based on the amount of curb space in
front of a home. Downtown is an ideal location to unbundle parking costs in new development, since surrounding neighborhoods are already protected from spill-over parking through a permit program.
