Here’s an interesting tidbit from a mostly unrelated article (about getting people out of cars) in today’s Seattle P-I:
Last March, Mayor Greg Nickels announced plans to reduce the number of parking spaces housing developers will need to provide in the Capitol Hill, First Hill, Pike-Pine and University District neighborhoods. The city’s Department of Planning and Development now wants to eliminate the required minimum altogether for both housing and commercial developments for those neighborhoods and around light-rail stations.
Not only will the initiative reduce the cost of housing, planners say, but it may encourage transit ridership.
Ah hah! So the key to drive housing prices down in Seattle is to eliminate parking. Hmm. So, if I’m understanding the “logic” correctly, the plan here is to reduce—possibly all the way to zero—the number of parking spaces in new neighborhoods, thus causing potential residents to be unable to drive anywhere, thus causing people to not want to live there, which drives down housing costs for that neighborhood, and consequently drives down surrounding housing costs.
It’s genius!
(Jane Hadley, Seattle P-I, 02.08.2006)