Mayor Nickels is at it again, this time proposing to eliminate the minimum parking space requirements for development around Seattle.
So let's run down the potential impacts of this new rule:
1. Developers build condos with few or no parking spaces, and jack up the prices for those units that have a parking space. Developers save $20,000 - $30,000 for each parking spot they do not build, but charge only slightly less for the unit, pocketing the difference in profit.
2. Less street parking in neighborhoods. People driving around endlessly looking for a spot. Quality of life for existing residents is affected.
3. Fewer families choose to live in Seattle, not just because it's unaffordable, but because families require vehicles and a place to park them.
4. Retail sales suffer in downtown because there are fewer parking spots, and those that remain are more expensive.
5. More people dependent on public transportation move into the city, thereby ensuring Nickels and his ilk remain in power.
Feel free to add more of your own impacts.
Posted by Palouse123 at November 22, 2006 09:05 AM | Email ThisIt's simple arithmetic: Available space - parking + more units = MORE TAXABLE PROPERTY.
1. More units, More taxes.
3 foster kids, 4 different appointments in different locations. The youngest, a medically fragile newborn.
Nickels do you really want me to take three kids, one fragile, from Shoreline to Pill Hill on the BUS? Standing out in yesterdays cold and rain waiting for busses with sick kids.
Or should I move downtown, where the schools suck, their playmates in the parks can be drunk bums and pedophiles, an walk a mile in the cold and rain with three sick kids?
Nickels you are pompous, arrogant, ignorant, a**. When you walk everywhere, I might consider your global warming flatulence with little more than contempt.
Posted by: JCM on November 23, 2006 09:56 AMIt is classed under European emission standards as a low emission vehicle. it gets almost twice the economy of the competitors in it's class.
But under CA emissions this vehicle will be banned.
So much for the intelligence of the intelligencia class.
Posted by: JCM on November 23, 2006 05:47 PM#6. Little, if any, parking available for out of town guest. Does Mr Nickles really expect people to take public transportation from Spokane, the Tri-Cities area or Portland, Oregon?
I run into this type of problem every time I go to Portland to visit my 91 year old Mother. Because of her age she no longer lives in a house and now lives approx 5 blocks up the hill from the PGE Park. There is 250 apts in her highrise and 3 levels of underground parking (there is not enought spaces for all the tenants). Occassionaly I am lucky and she can get me a vacant space, however most of the time I have to park on the street, frequently 2 - 3 blocks away. The last time I was there I lucked out and found a spot in front of her building. On street parking is free for 2 hours during the day, however you must have a permit to park longer hours or in the evening. In order to get the permit Mom had to provide proof that she was a resident at that building. Permits are sold in booklets of 10 for $3.00 and are good from midnight to midnight of the same day.
IMHO, Mr Nickles if going backwards if he continues to allow apts/condos to be built with only a few parking spaces.
Posted by: Janet on November 26, 2006 02:34 PMI've noticed alot of multi-family units going up near another friend's place in Wallingford, and it doesn't look like they have enough parking either. This proposal will only make it worse.
Posted by: Palouse on November 26, 2006 03:22 PMPS, notice how Nickel$ solar powered parking pay stations are taking up what was once "free" parking? I expect to see one in front of my house any day.