January 10, 2008
Parking Proposal Pending at Present Parliament Powwow
Parliament = City Council, ok? We love 'literation.
We mentioned the plan a while ago, but it appears to have legs, so here we go again. Brewster is proposing creation of what he calls the "Austin Parking Enterprise." The city would partner with developers to own parking garages in buildings being developed. Initially, it would operate the Seaholm garage and any in the Green Water Treatment Plant redevelopment. We're scared that this proposal will mean more parking gets built, making downtown more car-centric and pedestrian-unfriendly than it already is. According to the proposed policies, the Parking Enterprise "should seek to maximize the availability of public parking" and "may finance more parking spaces than are required for an associated private development."
This doesn't seems like a financial bonanza for the city. According to the Statesman, "McCracken believes [the parking garages] could be financially beneficial for the city because it could lower construction costs by issuing low-interest debt and wouldn't have to pay property taxes on the finished product. The city also would be willing to accept lower profit margins than private developers." Issuing debt and accepting low profit margins doesn't sound real "financially beneficial" and not having to pay property taxes cuts both ways, since the city and the schools get most of those property taxes.
Plus, there will be political pressure to keep the rates charged by these parking garages below market. In Ben Wear's amusing anecdote about smashing his car into the payment booth at the City Hall parking garage, he complains about having to pay for parking "In a government-owned garage????!!!" This is the same sort of argument that toll-road opponents often make: if everyone's taxes helped build it, why should I have to pay to use it? This argument makes sense if everyone benefits from the person using the thing that everyone's taxes helped pay for. Riding the bus benefits everyone by reducing fuel use and road congestion, so everyone's tax money should support that. Ben Wear parking at City Hall (or taking a toll road or buying gasoline) benefits Ben Wear and does some slight harm to everyone else, so he should have to pay for it himself and pay a little extra for public benefit. If the city decides to operate parking garages, it should maximize profits. If political pressure causes the city to reduce the rates, then this will be just another government subsidy of car-centric culture.
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Problem with just opposing these is that we make it impossible for somebody to open a private parking garage (one that's open to the public but not linked to any particular building). The options right now are that we rely on overflow from building garages (works to a certain extent) or go back to the suburban model where I move my car every time I go from store to store.
There IS an argument for municipal parking garages, as long as they charge enough money not to qualify as a subsidy. Brewster's talking about these being revenue-generators, so it's hard to make the subsidy angle stick.
If the city makes money on these and they don't result in more cars downtown, then I like the plan. I'm just not sure that is the case.
It could do some combination of good and bad of each. But bringing more people downtown to shop is better than bringing them to the suburban strip malls to shop, even if they drive to get there.
Would you really prefer somebody drive to four different strip malls, on Anderson Lane, let's say, rather than drive once to a downtown garage where they could leave their car the whole time?
Again, the problem with the current environment is that it's nearly impossible for a private developer to get a public garage built - and the private garages have strong incentives not to allow public use. Since we're apparently never going to get any good transit INTO downtown, and never going to get any good transit AROUND downtown, giving people one place to park instead of four might be something we can actually achieve in the meantime.
Shilli and Damhaus for City Council.
... giving people one place to park instead of four might be something we can actually achieve in the meantime.
That's a good idea, and I say that as a non-car owner who desperately wants Austin to become more ped-friendly.
If the city charges a flat daily rate, with no in-&-out privileges -- make it steep enough to discourage people from just parking for an hour or so -- that would be an incentive for downtown visitors to park in one place for the entire evening. And it could probably be a good revenue generator for the city, given the dearth of downtown parking with more lofts on the drawing board.
It doesn't seem to me like there is a dearth of parking downtown - I seldom have trouble finding a meter spot, and never have trouble finding an open garage or lot where I could pay to park (I'm not trying to park on sixth street at 10pm on Fridays, but I don't think we should take the church-parking-lot-on-Easter sizing approach).
Also, I think this is the wrong way to encourage downtown retail (and I don't see any other reason we would want more parking downtown). If we want to encourage/subsidize downtown retail (which I want to do) then we can do so directly by eliminating property taxes on retail space. I think making downtown retail more reliant on downtown residents is a good thing. That way we get more restaurants/delis/dry cleaners, etc. that downtown residents need and use everyday, making downtown more livable and encouraging more people to live downtown. A subsidized parking program combined with high property taxes on retail space leads downtown to become a high-end shopping mall (like Second Street and the Domain) where people from Westlake drive over to by $75 t-shirts, but where it is hard for normal people to live.
I'm with Shilli. Prices for downtown parking in Austin don't seem to reflect a shortage nor, anecdotally, do I seem to ever encounter difficulties--this is shortsighted, of course, but nonetheless. Even if prices begin to rise steeply to reflect this ostensible shortage, I'm not so sure this is a bad thing.
Although, honestly, I'm not entirely sure whether demand will be very responsive to this price rise, once we move away from the assumption that those that frequent downtown are a cross-section of Austinites and that the retail sector that has emerged downtown is accessible to regular Austinites. Even steep marginal increases in parking rates aren't likely to dissuade typical shoppers at these places--I'm sure you've seen the prices of couches at these places. And, I doubt anything will stymie 6th street revelers...
I suggested that the city consider a public improvement district that would pay for new parking by assessing property owners. Let the property owners figure out whether new parking is worth the price. They'd have the incentive to get it right. That would save the rest of us this back and forth over supply and demand. It would also eliminate the taxpayer subsidy.
AC, the problem then is that everybody who shops (including non-driving shoppers) pays. That's a worse subsidy in my book than having the city assume some risk (but all of the profit).
AC, the problem then is that everybody who shops (including non-driving shoppers) pays. That's a worse subsidy in my book than having the city assume some risk (but all of the profit).
I don't think that's worse than making people who never come downtown or who never use a car at all pay.
And remember that a City-owned garage may book a "profit" while still being a terrible deal financially for the City. The lost property taxes and foregone profits from an alternative, more profitable use are part of the cost too.
AC, yes, I agree with that too. I'm operating under the assumption here that parking operations would be profitable enough to make up for the lost property taxes. One alternative is to make sure said property is one that's not particularly profitably developed anyways (a city-owned plot with capital view corridor restrictions, for instance).
My preferred alternative would be for the city to say that a privately owned public parking garage is now welcome on any block downtown - that we will approve any such proposal as compatible with DMU and CBD zoning as long as street-level pedestrian use is provided. I don't think we'll get there, though; too much baggage from all the crappy private-use and especially state garages.
Of all the ways cities subsidize driving and penalize alternatives, municipal parking garages are the least offensive - in some ways they actually encourage said alternatives, at least at the margins. For instance, if there's not quite enough local pedestrian traffic to allow a set of businesses on a block to thrive, the extra ped traffic from a municipal garage the next block over might do the trick - and the local peds benefit from the healthier businesses.