>Of course it is — unproductive land use creates negative externalities that affect the entire surrounding community. It's like saying "a factory dumping waste into a river doesn't pollute the commons if the river runs through their property".

Pretty damn rich to say such a thing when exactly this sort of hand wringing that brought this whole crap about.

"oh no, think about how the commons will be polluted if we don't compel people to build parking space". -some karen in 1970, probably

The right thing go do is back off the regulation. Let land owners do what they please. If that's a parking space (it almost certainly won't be in the overwhelming majority of cases) so be it. And then when there's enough demand parking garages will go up.