Some days, keeping up with Denver city governmentap views of car ownership can make us feel like we’re taking crazy pills. But — thankfully — sanity prevailed among council members in last week’s reform of the city’s off-street parking exemption.
What a strange fight it was. Urbanists and city planners hoped to allow builders of micro apartments to either completely forgo providing off-street parking, or provide precious little of it. On the other side were residents who knew what that would mean in the really real world: extra cars competing for places to park on already clogged streets in Denver’s most-loved neighborhoods.
That this dispute took months to settle speaks volumes about the depths of the passions over such issues.
As The Denver Postap Jon Murray reported, the battle started after put in place in 2005 that was meant to help spur small-business development on small lots along East Colfax Avenue. In 2010, the city looped in other mixed-used areas across the city.
The lots at issue are 6,250 square feet or less. The original idea was to help small businesses and avoid bigger projects that combined lots.
Then came word that developers were planning a pair of five-story micro-apartment buildings with up to 108 units. Using the exemption, developers originally planned to skip any off-site parking amenities. Whatap more, other such developments were in the works — . The argument, of course, was that occupants wouldn’t need cars, because of Denver’s transit options and bicycle lanes.
After neighbors rightly argued that many of the new apartments’ occupants and their guests would, in fact, also use cars, the City Council declared a moratorium on the exemption and reviewed the situation.
, even though we also see the value of a multi-modal approach. As we noted at the time, one reason streets are congested is due to the fact that people are circling in search for places to park. Or as Councilman Jolon Clark put it, certain neighborhoods could see “row after row of 16 units with no parking” in the place of current shops or single-family homes, adding: “That is something that will dramatically change the feel of that community.”
Last week the that requires at least some off-street parking (over, by the way, the continued objections of city planners, who supported less-strict requirements). The new rules allow developers of future projects to avoid putting in parking spaces for housing or offices for the first story, or on the first two floors as long as the site is within a quarter-mile of a bus line or a half-mile of a rail station. Past that, normal parking ratio requirements are to be honored.
Council members were wise to take action. Maybe when self-driving-car rentals supplant ownership, current parking requirements won’t make sense anymore. But that reality isn’t here yet, and the vast majority of residents own cars. They’ve got to put them somewhere, even if they do live in tiny spaces.
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