The post below notes infers that relaxing parking requirements causes parking problems. I disagree. Parking requirements limit growth and often prevent stores and shops for renovating existing structures.
Salt Lake City (read it here) is considering reducing the required number of parking for some stores by a third, and removing them altogether for others. This warms the heart of a true Shoupista.
Downtown rebirth has been stymied by parking rules. When a store was built, its original use was, say, a shoe store. It’s parking requirement was half a dozen spaces. Now the shoe store is gone and someone wants to put in a club/restaurant/cabaret. The requirement for parking might be 25 spaces. They don’t exist. The new owner goes to the city for a variance and is told either they can’t do it or, sure, but you have to pay the city $10,000 for each space you don’t have. (Mitigation.)
Of course, that puts the cost of the new business well above what is possible, and the deal falls through.
We note here that the restaurant would use on street spaces mostly after hours when other stores were closed and not using them.
SLC is going to grow new, local neighborhoods where people can walk to shops, restaurants, and boutiques rather than have to pile into the car and drive to the mall outside of town. Allowing all those unused buildings to be renovated into valuable, income (and tax) producing businesses is a good thing.
Way to go, SLC.
JVH
