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Comment by J_Shelby_J | Hacker News Reader

It should decrease housing costs as well. The rules in my area are two spots per bedroom - mandatory. But my building is in uptown Dallas and the main draw to the area is that people work in the area and walk to work. So many people don't own cars or are only a one home house hold.

And because it's a highrise parking spots are expensive. Like $50k+ each. And that goes directly to the price of housing in rents.

Meanwhile, even at the busiest our garage is more than half empty. What a waste.

D magazine even used a picture of my garage in their article: https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2021/12/the-city-of-da...

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> The rules in my area are two spots per bedroom - mandatory

Wait am I reading this right that a 3-bedroom family home would come with space for six cars? How many families have 6 cars that's insane O.O

Sounds like a regulation someone long ago thought would for sure prevent anyone from building anything. No way they actually wanted that much residential parking ...

I don't think there's a good one-size-fits-all rule. A 3 bedroom unit could be 3 couples living together and splitting the rent, or it could be 1 family, or it could just be 1 person who wants an office and a gym. The rule should probably be "1 space for car owned", like when you go to buy a car, you have to prove that you have a place to park it.

Just restrict who can park on the street. Then if people want to park a car, they'll need a residence with a space, and if there's demand for residences with parking spaces, developers will build them, minimums or not. The issue with minimums is that they require building spaces above and beyond demand, but markets should do just fine at making sure demand is met, as long as there are barriers to externalizing it.

In Japan you have to vouch that you have a parking space for your car. I think a similar rule would work for the states. However, it will cause a huge tension between the parking spot haves and parking spot have nots, without adequate equality will be seen (rightfully so) as a move to limit cars among those who can't afford parking spots for them.

For better or worse, the USA has basically made a contract with its people that "you have the right to a car, and because of that, we will provide really sucky public transit." That contract has to change before we start aggressively taking cars out of the system.

You don't have to "vouch" that you have a parking space, you have to prove it. The police will actually come to your home and measure your parking space to make sure it's big enough for the model of car you want to buy.

I can't imagine Americans submitting to a law like this.

> if there's demand for residences with parking spaces, developers will build them

That's somewhat optimistic. In the absence of rules, developers will maximize their profit above all else. Apartment units are far more profitable than parking, so they'll just build the maximum units with no parking.

I lived in such a neighborhood once. Result is 50 unit buildings with 4 parking spots. And the result of that? People driving around the blocks for hours looking for parking, fights breaking out over parking, cars constantly vandalized for taking over "their" spot. It was not fun.

Why isn’t a parking space specifically attached to a residence than bought it? That’s the reason for the fights right there.

Letting the developer maximize profits also lets residents choose residences without parking spots, to save money.

> The rule should probably be "1 space for car owned", like when you go to buy a car, you have to prove that you have a place to park it.

That doesn't provide any guidance to the builder though, so what should they build?

I mean, typically laws do not substitute for the creative process of designing and marketing buildings. What color should the walls be? What kind of kitchen faucet should you have? What should the countertops be made out of? What flooring surface will you use? There is no reason that "how many parking spaces should we build" be the 1 question that the government answers for you. Make an educated guess. If you're wrong and build too many, you leave money on the table. If you build too few, then people will buy some other unit with more parking.

> What color should the walls be? What kind of kitchen faucet should you have? What should the countertops be made out of? What flooring surface will you use?

All of these can very easily be changed by future buyers if they prefer something different.

But if the developers builds a 50 unit apartment building with just 4 parking spots, that building is now there for many generations and there is no practical way to change that decision.

Mandatory parking minimums in American are insane.

The rules for them are a joke and just made up at random with little justification for them other than trust us bro.

Climatetown has a good, if long, video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8

> Meanwhile, even at the busiest our garage is more than half empty.

Unfortunately, that sounds like the spaces are close to being properly priced in the market?

Getting more utilization would require the price come down, and the price decrease may not increase the overall revenue immediately.

You would need cheaper nearby parking in order to force the price down. If there is no cheaper parking nearby, then the market is at the clearing price.

The price of a car itself is significant, there may well be zero utilization in an area where residents simply don’t own cars.

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