Category: Affordability

Categories
Affordability Transportation

Housing for People, Not Cars

No laws require housing for people, but most zoning codes require a generous number of parking spaces to be included in developments, which is an inefficient and unfair subsidy for cars. It forces car-free households to pay for parking spaces that they don’t need or want, and is a major constraint on affordable infill development. 

Including driveways and access lanes, a typical urban parking space requires 250-350 square feet of land and costs and costs between $10,000, for a surface space up to $60,000 for a structured or underground space. In order to meet minimum parking requirements, townhouses and apartments must devote more land to parking than to buildings. Meeting these requirements adds little to the cost of a million-dollar home, but typically increases the cost of a small, low-priced apartment by 10-30%, and since the occupants of such apartments are often car-free, it is an unfair burden.

Considering land, construction and operating costs, each parking space has a $1,000-3,000 annualized value, and because zoning codes result in two to six off-street parking spaces per motor vehicle (one at home, one at the worksite, and a share of parking at various commercial destinations), for each dollar a motorist spends on their vehicle somebody must spend more than a dollar to provide parking for it, representing a huge subsidy of automobile travel. This is also inefficient because most parking lots are seldom full, representing a wasted resource.

This is not to suggest that everybody should forego automobile travel and all parking spaces should be eliminated, but there are better ways to satisfy parking needs through more efficient management. Many communities significantly reduce or eliminate their minimum parking requirements, particularly for lower-priced housing in walkable urban neighborhoods, allowing developers to decide how much parking to provide based on market demand. They apply various management strategies to ensure that parking facilities are used as efficiently as possible. This is one of the most important policy reforms for increasing affordability and encouraging more efficient transportation.

For More Information

Mikhail Chester, et al. (2015), “Parking Infrastructure: A Constraint on or Opportunity for Urban Redevelopment? A Study of Los Angeles County Parking Supply and Growth, Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 81, No. 4, pp. 268-286; website: www.transportationlca.org/losangelesparking.

Joshua Engel-Yan and Dylan Passmore (2010), “Assessing Alternative Approaches to Setting Parking Requirements,” ITE Journal, Vo. 80, No. 12, December, 30-25.

King County Right Size Parking Project.

Todd Litman (2014), Parking Requirement Impacts on Housing Affordability, Victoria Transport Policy Institute.

Todd Litman (2016), Parking Management: Strategies, Evaluation and Planning, Victoria Transport Policy Institute.

Donald Shoup (2005), The High Cost of Free Parking, Planners Press.

Richard Willson (2015), Parking Management for Smart Growth, Island Press.

Categories
Affordability Political

Recent Times Colonist Newspaper articles

Here are recent articles in the Times Colonist related to Cities for Everyone:

Comment: You Got Yours, Now Please Let Others Have a Chance by Ericka Amador and Todd Litman

Comment: Stopping New Development Hurts Young Families by Phoebe Hall

Letter: Victoria Needs More Rental Housing by Ken Roueche

Categories
Affordability

Cities for Everyone Media Release

10 March 2017

For immediate release

Cities for Everyone. New grassroots organization supports affordable housing and transportation in the Capital Region.

Victoria, 9 March 2017. Cities for Everyone (CFE) is a new community organization that supports more affordable housing and transportation in order to provide security, freedom and opportunity for people of all incomes and abilities. Its goal is to educate and advocate for more affordable infill development and more affordable transportation options in the Capital Region.

 

Home Sweet, Affordable Home!

Many hard-working families are stressed by economic forces that drive up living costs faster than wages. This results, in part, from public policies that favor costly housing and transportation options over more affordable alternatives. Since these are the two largest expenses in most households’ budgets, representing 60% of total spending by many lower-income households, such policies significantly reduce affordability.

“Cities for Everyone aims to make Victoria more inclusive and liveable for everyone. We want to see everyone from students to young families to seniors afford to live in a vibrant neighborhood where they have access to jobs, education and leisure without needing a car if they don’t want one.” CFE member, Ericka Amador said.

For many households, the most affordable option consists of inexpensive housing types, such as townhouses and apartments, located in walkable urban neighborhoods where residents don’t need to own a car. Like many cities, Victoria has a shortage of such housing, forcing lower-income households to spend more than they can afford on housing and transport. Affordable urban housing gives struggling households more economic freedom and opportunity.

According to CFE member Todd Litman, “It is time to rethink and reform current policies that prevent compact infill housing development. It’s time to say, ‘Yes in my backyard’ to affordable infill housing, such as townhouses and low-rise apartments, in walkable urban neighborhoods. Cities for Everyone works to educate residents about affordability issues, and encourage public officials to support an affordability policy agenda.”

Cities for Everyone differs from other organizations because it advocates for both housing and transportation affordability, and because it primarily addresses housing and transport options suitable for moderate-income workers, students and pensioners, rather than focusing on homelessness and subsidized housing.

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For more information:

Email:    info@citiesforeveryone.org

Website: www.citiesforeveryone.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citiesforeveryone

Phone: Todd Litman, 250-360-1560, litman@vtpi.org

Categories
Affordability Political

You Got Yours, Now Please Let Others Have a Chance: An open letter to neighborhood associations

Living in a walkable urban neighborhood provides many direct and indirect benefits. More walking creates a friendly and livable community, living close to services saves residents time and money, and by reducing total driving it reduces traffic and parking problems, accident risk and pollution emissions imposed on others. If you live in such an area, you already enjoy these benefits. Now, please share them with others, particularly those with lower incomes. It’s only fair, and creates a better community.

According to CRD projections, to increase affordability our Region must add over 2,200 more housing units annually, about half of which should be priced for moderate- and lower-income families. Some areas are helping to serve these needs: downtown Victoria has more than 3,000 high-rise units, and the West Shore has several hundred single-family houses under various stages of development. However, these won’t meet most lower-income households’ needs. Not everybody is suited to downtown or suburban living, and both high rise and suburban single family housing are costly to build. Considering land, construction, operating and transportation costs, the most affordable housing type is generally low-rise (two- to six-story) wood-frame townhouses and apartments with unbundled parking (parking rented separately from housing units) located in a walkable urban neighborhood.

Our region has a severe shortage of such housing, due primarily to nneighbourhood opposition. Existing residents oppose lower-cost housing types, lobby for reduced building density and height, and demand far more parking than lower-income households actually need, which drives up housing costs.  Why? Because they have nothing to lose. They already live in a walkable neighborhood and want to exclude others.

Low-rise apartments with unbundled parking are generally the most affordable housing type, but are prohibited in most of Victoria’s residential neighbourhoods (indicated in yellow in this map).

 

Of course, infill development can cause noise and dust, and may increase local traffic and parking congestion, but it also provides substantial benefits. It creates more vibrant and diverse neighborhoods, increases local business activity and jobs. Residents of walkable urban neighborhoods tend to own fewer cars and drive less than they would in more sprawled locations, which reduces total regional vehicle travel and associated congestion, parking, accident and pollution problems. Critics sometimes argue that low-income households will attract criminals and reduce property values; in fact, most affordable housing occupants are responsible seniors, students and workers, and allowing more compact development increases property values.

At best, preventing affordable infill development reduces symptoms, but allowing affordable infill treats the roots of urban problems causes by sprawl and automobile dependency. Many infill housing opponents may someday want such housing for themselves or loved ones when it’s time to downsize, or when they want nearby housing for a parent, adult children or friends.

Real-world examples illustrate how development restrictions can reduce housing affordability. In 2003 a developer proposed the Bohemia and Castana, a pair of three- and four-story mixed-use buildings with 71 residential units, a third of which were to be moderate-price rentals, in the Cook Street Village, a walkable neighborhood in Victoria, British Columbia. Local residents objected. They considered the buildings too tall, too bulky and too modern, although the critics were unable to explain exactly how they would be harmed by a fourth story. Never-the-less, the opponents were successful: the City rejected the proposal. Instead, the developer constructed a three-story building with 51 condominiums but no rental units. In a city with nearly 50,000 houses, 20 fewer moderate-priced units is too small to notice, but if this is typical, it indicates that community resistance typically reduces affordable infill housing development by a third compared with what developers would provide in less restricted markets.

Reducing the Bohemia Building’s allowable height to three stories forced the developer to reduce from 71 units including twenty moderate-priced rentals to 51 more costly units with no rentals.

 

When infill development is restricted, the lower-priced units are usually the first to be eliminated, because they are the least profitable. This forces lower-income households to pay more for housing than they can afford, or live in less accessible neighborhoods where they will drive more and increase regional traffic problems. This is a fairness issue: living in a walkable urban neighbourhood increases low income resident’s economic opportunity and social inclusion.

It is time to say Yes In My Backyard to affordable infill housing development!

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A condensed version of this blog was published in the Times Colonist newspaper.

Categories
Affordability Environment

Real Environmentalists Support Infill

Environmentalists have good reasons to oppose sprawled, automobile-dependent urban-fringe development, which displaces opens space (wildlife habitat and farmlands) and results in high rates of motor vehicle travel and energy consumption. However, every time environmentalists say, “don’t build here” they have an obligation to say, “instead, build more there”, and support affordable infill housing development in accessible, multi-modal neighborhoods; otherwise, they will reduce affordability and shift households to other locations.

Residents sometimes use environmental arguments to oppose urban infill, for example, that a new residential development has insufficient greenspace or will increase local vehicle traffic and pollution, but this ignores the much larger environmental damages that would result if a lack of urban housing forces families that would prefer smaller-footprint homes in walkable neighborhoods are forced to locate in lower-density, sprawled housing.

True environmentalists support compact infill development because this reduces urban sprawl, which reduces per capita land consumption, preserves openspace, and reduces automobile travel and associated costs.

Categories
Affordability

Unprecedented Spending Trends in America

Here is a very cool chart by Yuka Kato, “Unprecedented Spending Trends in America, in One Chart.”

How Americans spent their money in the last 75 years
This chart illustrates U.S. consumer expenditure trends from 1941 to 2014. During this period household spending on education, recreation, healthcare, transportation and housing increased significantly while spending on tobacco, clothing and food declined. Housing and transport represent the largest absolute expenditure increases.

You could argue that this represents an increase in consumer welfare (i.e., people are better off overall), based on the assumption that more expensive transportation and housing reflect their preferences. However, these increases may reflect a decline in the availability of affordable transport and housing options, such as degraded walking conditions, reduced public transit services, more sprawled, automobile-dependent community design, and reduced supply of affordable housing types such as townhouses and apartments. If so (and my research indicates that this has occurred) then many households are forced to spend more without any net benefit – an economic trap that makes many people (particularly those with lower incomes) worse off overall.

For more discussion see Affordable-Accessible Housing in a Dynamic City: Why and How to Support Development of More Affordable Housing in Accessible Locations.