Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Parking Requirement are Terrible for Downtowns

No, really. But they are ESPECIALLY terrible for historic main streets and down towns.

Sandpoint, Idaho removed minimum parking requirements a decade ago. The city's director of planning describes what happened since.

The 2009 approval of a 60,000 square foot, 3-story bank headquarters in the heart of downtown ended up requiring 218 parking spaces. Because only 110 were provided (which was plenty), the bank was subjected to in-lieu parking fees totaling over $700,000. Well, being bankers, they soon realized the cheaper alternative was to buy up adjacent properties and demolish the buildings for surface lots. Consequently, small businesses were evicted and the much-beloved downtown historic development pattern was diminished.

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