Setbacks are not the same as sidewalks. You can allow buildings to run right to the sidewalk without pushing pedestrians/wheelchairs into the street.
I love big brother...
I expect so. About 16% of Somerville households don't have a car (according to the census).
> Do you think a developer would risk only selling to that market?
Some developers would choose to build off-street parking anyway, even though it's not required, and that's fine. I'm saying we should remove the requirement to build parking.
> It seems like that would limit what they could sell the units for, and as a buyer I would have to think carefully about being able to re-sell the unit.
This is another way of saying that the units would be cheaper. That's a good thing!
But what's the excuse for passing a law that prohibits the alternative? Can't we have both?
Avoiding a tragedy of the commons. If you don't make parking mandatory in building code, people won't build it and everyone will try to park on the street in public property, which leads to a bunch of other issues. By mandating the off-street parking by code, you're preserving the city right of ways and ensuring things like fire services, street sweeping, etc. aren't constantly dodging (potentially illegally) parked cars filling every inch of space.
Then people who own a car without a parking space will get tired of having their car towed every single day and move into housing that has parking, and the housing without parking will be left occupied by people who don't have cars.
And it can be damn hard to move. I think it's better to prevent the problem by ensuring developers plan on enough space. Another thing that's sometimes required is to ensure access by car (the developers may be required to rework an intersection). Again, for good reason.
These regulations were born of seeing things that were wrong and trying to fix them. Not perfect, but it's an attempt. Nobody's trying to be evil, they are just trying to make it so that people can live places easily and have their needs accounted for.
But why not?
You have a street with insufficient parking. There is demand for parking, so you buy one of the homes, knock it down, put up a new building with a large parking garage and sell spaces to the neighbors. Now there is more parking.
It seems like the problem is that people want to eat their cake and have it too. They want parking but they don't want to pay for it. But mandating it doesn't allow you to not pay for it, all it does is require you to pay for it even if you don't need it.
Someday, it may also include their pets. As of yet it doesn't, but these "thickly settled" areas are starting to feel the effects of people who want to keep large pets in small houses where the space to walk them is limited.
We have a lot of dense 30’ city lots with no parking, and narrow residential streets not wide enough for parking on both sides. If people park legally, larger vehicles like emergency vehicles cannot pass. So most people park on the sidewalks in residential neighborhoods and it is tolerated. This blocks sidewalks for pedestrians and the disabled, and the sidewalk crumble, look awful, and are a hazard to walk on when cars aren’t parked on them.
Back when the neighborhood was built, there was a robust transit system and everyone worked and shopped in the city center. But now, we have shopping malls, suburbs, and office parks. No longer can a person shop and work exclusively in the city center. It’s too spread out.
a) pay $200 more to have off-street parking, or
b) pay $200 less and fight to the death for on-street parking once or twice a week
Lots of people with cars will choose b. This presents a problem for the municipality, because now street parking is >100% full all of the time.
Maybe they will, but not before first overloading the existing available public parking, which may be a non-problem to you but apparently isn't to lots of people who vote.
However, in LA while it's required to have parking space minimum for new residential buildings it's not required to give those spaces for free to resident. I lived in a new apartment complex with tons of parking, but none of it was used. It was 200$ for extra spot and not guest parking.
Another issue is those dumb plaza everywhere. 50 businesses and 20 parking spots.
The government officials pretty clearly have their own interests and incentives independent from the citizens, but we don't need to go down that road right now.
> What's wrong with them wanting to guarantee that option b) exists?
It's option b) that they're prohibiting. But if you want option a) then all you have to do is choose it -- nobody is requesting that housing with parking be prohibited. If you're willing to pay the premium it costs over housing without parking then go do that, just don't prevent other people from doing something different.
Or at least the people who are willing to give up easily available street parking for visitors and consumers to get it.