Courtesy of SFMTA.

As one would expect in a market price experiment — as opposed to an exclusive revenue generation measure, or “stealth tax,” as it has been dubbed by the literati that haunt the SFGate comments section — the SFMTA both increased and decreased different meter rates depending on the level of demand for those parking spots.  In fact, for this first round of adjustments, most parking meters in pilot neighborhoods will be no more expensive to use than before.  Rates will decrease at 32 percent of meters within the pilot area, stay the same at 37 percent of meters, and increase at only 31 percent of meters.

Responding to the data (available as both PDF maps and an Excel spreadsheet) creates a fine-grained result in which one block may have higher rates, while a nearby or even directly adjacent block has lower rates.  Not surprisingly, there is a need to boost the price at many times of day on popular and walkable commercial segments (e.g. Hayes Street between Franklin and Laguna, Valencia Street, Fillmore Street between Bush and Jackson, Chestnut Street west of Fillmore, and the Financial District/Jackson Square).  In contrast, prices will stay the same or decrease on weekdays for high-volume traffic arteries like Geary Blvd., Van Ness, and Lombard, as well as significant portions of the Wharf, Civic Center, and South of Market pilot areas.  Although the SFMTA could have decreased rates this month by as much as 50 cents under its adopted policy, the data collected so far suggests that in three cases (Fillmore, Mission, and Marina), the rate should not be lowered more than 25 cents at any meter throughout the time period in which the meters operate, while in other pilot areas a 50-cent decrease is sometimes warranted.

That’s one reason I was excited that SFpark launched this past week, generating a continuous open data feed that tracks the location and quantity of available parking in the handful of identified pilot neighborhoods. Consider the following maps of the Fillmore and Mission, screenshots from Friday night:

SFpark pilot areas: Fillmore (left) and Mission (right), on Friday night (April 22 at 10:15 p.m.). Red = 0-15 percent of parking available, light blue = 15-30 percent available, dark blue = more than 30 percent available.

(Links to all Friday maps: Financial District, South of Market, Civic Center/Hayes Valley, Fillmore, Mission, Wharf, Marina.)

And another set of screenshots for the Financial District and South of Market, taken at 12 noon on Sunday:

SFpark pilot area: Financial District, on Sunday (April 24 at 12 noon). Red = 0-15 percent of parking available, light blue = 15-30 percent available, dark blue = more than 30 percent available.

SFpark pilot area: South of Market, on Sunday (April 24 at 12 noon). Red = 0-15 percent of parking available, light blue = 15-30 percent available, dark blue = more than 30 percent available.

(Links to all Sunday maps: Financial District, South of Market, Civic Center/Hayes Valley, Fillmore, Mission, Wharf, Marina.)

The MTA will monitor occupancy on each block and adjust the parking meter rate periodically based on demand. To ensure that at least one parking spot is available per block for the most part, pilot blocks that are at least 85 percent occupied during certain periods of the day will be targeted for a rate increase during those time periods. In the screenshots above, stretches of block marked in red, with less than 15 percent of spots available, are those high-demand spots that would theoretically be targeted for a rate increase.

One conclusion that can be derived at a glance? That the market price for parking in the evenings and on Sundays in these pilot neighborhoods is higher than what is currently being charged (which is zilch).  When parking is free, motorists have little incentive to vacate parking spots in a timely fashion.  Another good reason to revisit extended parking meter hours?

(No, this is not a groundbreaking revelation.  Yes, there was already data supporting agency staff’s previous recommendation to extend meter hours.  Yes, that data was ignored by squirming politicians.)

SFpark meter in Hayes Valley, San Francisco. Image: courtesy of SFMTA.

Although programs like SFpark demonstrate progress and provide valuable case studies, opportunities abound to improve parking management in both major cities and suburbs throughout the United States.  But parking is also a touchy and controversial topic; proposals to increase parking fees are generally not greeted warmly and can be vociferously protested.

Learning from Mistakes

One barrier to implementing effective parking policy is the context in which government officials propose changes to parking fees.  Particularly during the recession, municipalities have been strapped for cash and seek to increase parking fees as a means of generating revenue to help balance the budget.  The result is that the sound policy reasons to raise the price of parking become drowned out by loud opposition from members of the public, who claim to be victims of an unfair budget that is balanced on the backs of citizens.  Cities that wait until a budget crisis knocks at their door to increase the price of parking are not doing themselves a favor because the underlying motivation for the adjustment will be transparent.  Moreover, the substance of the changes that are proposed may also reveal that underlying motivation, in that they involve simplistic blanket fee hikes — rather than a truly dynamic, market-based approach where the price of a particular parking spot changes with demand.  In short, it becomes all too clear that the purpose of the higher parking fees is not to enact sound policy, but to generate revenue.  When a city tries to do the right thing for the “wrong” reason — to the extent that increasing parking fees to avoid cutting municipal services can be deemed “wrong” — it makes it all the more difficult to try it again later for the right reason.

The marquee of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, which proudly displays progressive political messages, adopted a conservative stance on parking in 2009 -- an all-too-common knee-jerk reaction among many merchants. Image: courtesy of Fragmentary Evidence.

Another barrier to implementing effective parking policy is the perception that higher parking fees diminish a city’s competitiveness, as compared to nearby cities, by making it more difficult for merchants to attract customers.  This point emerged during the backlash in 2009, when the Oakland City Council considered higher fees and extended meter hours as one measure to address the city’s budget deficit.  The underlying assumption here is that the cost of parking is a significant, perhaps even the predominant, factor at play when someone is deciding where to eat dinner, see a movie, or go shopping.  And while this concern was perhaps an especially sensitive point in Oakland because of retail leakage, it overlooks several more important considerations, including: (1) that most people probably won’t travel long distances just to find cheaper parking, particularly when paying more for gas eliminates any potential savings; (2) that the increase in parking price is often minimal compared to the cost of a meal or movie; (3) that many customers seek a unique merchant, neighborhood, or experience that cannot be replicated elsewhere; and (4) that increasing the cost of parking does not necessarily make the city or neighborhood a less compelling destination, but rather, provides an incentive for customers to use transit to travel to neighborhoods they would otherwise access by car.

There are many reasons to question the assertion that higher parking fees make a city less competitive.  But whether or not this is true in fact, the mere existence of this perception suggests that rational parking reform will be an uphill battle — one in which common arguments opposing higher fees will be aired again and again, in city after city.  It is this situation that helps frame the role that regional governments can play in the conversation about parking.

A Role for Regional Participation

Involving regional entities in parking management may, at first glance, seem like a strange idea.  Traditionally, parking management has been left to cities.  Cities control how streets are used within their respective jurisdictions, and they retain the power to charge (or not) for public parking.  In California, regional entities like metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) cannot simply swoop in and force a city to change its parking policies.

And yet the above discussion suggests that a regional directive on parking could be beneficial.  An MPO can provide valuable direction by identifying best practices, assembling useful case studies, and establishing a policy framework that explains and justifies the benefits of parking demand management.  This readily available resource would provide cities with a more constructive way to frame the public discussion about parking, while educating citizens that parking reform has benefits beyond providing the city with more revenue.  Establishing a regional consensus on parking demand management could also help eliminate the popular perception that increasing the price of parking makes a city a less desirable place to do business when compared to nearby cities that retain low parking fees.  Geographically proximate cities, perhaps with the assistance of the MPO, could cooperate in developing harmonious parking policies.

MPOs can provide grants to cities that demonstrate interest in implementing smart parking demand management strategies, and in this respect, there is a useful precedent.  The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in the Bay Area has been able to take advantage of its control over funding to leverage improvements in land use — particularly in terms of planning transit-oriented development within walking distance of stations planned along new transit extensions.  Land use, like parking, is firmly within the dominion of local control.  And yet regional influence over land use is possible, despite the fact that MPOs like MTC have no statutory authority to make land use approval decisions.

A similar approach could be taken for parking reform, in which a regional policy directive both guides local planning efforts and provides the funding incentive needed to get the job done.  MTC has taken tentative initial steps to investigate what role regional governments should play in the parking arena, and in the future, I hope to discuss in more detail ways to improve regional oversight of parking.

Senate Bill 375 provides metropolitan regions in California with a compelling reason to do so now.  Parking — whether it is abundant or scarce, cheap or expensive — has tremendous influence on shaping travel choices.  Parking demand management could be an effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, both by (1) encouraging drivers to switch to transit, particularly for peak hour trips, and (2) reducing the emissions associated with drivers circling city blocks on the hunt for parking.  Rational parking policies, when combined with smart land use decisions, are a powerful tool for reducing vehicle miles traveled, and, in turn, for achieving SB 375′s regional emissions reductions targets.  One of the core lessons we take away from the Initial Vision Scenario prepared by MTC and ABAG for the Bay Area is that compact growth alone is not sufficient.  The Sustainable Communities Strategy will need to incorporate additional techniques in order to achieve the target.  A strong regional consensus on parking policy, coupled with robust implementation at the local level, could be just such a technique.

Let them have parking lots while waiting for high rises?

This week, the Oakland Planning Commission will consider a peculiar concoction brewed up by Planning Department staff called temporary conditional use permits (TCUPs).  As explained by the staff report (41 MB PDF), the purpose of the proposed TCUP program is to help property owners maintain the economic viability of their vacant parcels, by allowing them to host temporary uses on their land to weather the economic downturn.  The report compiles an inventive list of various types of uses — including “edible gardens” and “crop and animal raising” — that could theoretically be installed on vacant lots with the help of a TCUP.  But it buries the lede: The true purpose of the TCUPs is to ease approval of surface parking lots, particularly in Oakland’s central business district (CBD), where the zoning prohibits surface parking.

You might expect planners to grasp a few basic truths about surface parking.  You might expect them to recognize that curb cuts dangerously intrude on the sidewalk’s protective right of way for pedestrians; that surface parking is hostile to the urban fabric; that it makes no sense to encourage people to drive to a transit-rich downtown by providing excessive parking; and that surface parking lots waste space and are unattractive dead zones that are deleterious to the health and vibrancy of the surrounding area.  In short, you would expect planners to acknowledge that surface parking is one of the worst uses imaginable in the CBD, which should by all rights be a city’s most attractive and thriving neighborhood.  I have quoted Ms. Jacobs before, but some things bear repeating: “… parking lots … are powerful and insistent instruments of city destruction.”

Applicable zoning in the CBD permits parking structures, but quite rightly forbids surface lots.  Instead of simply following this principle, staff proposes TCUPs as the mechanism of choice to circumvent zoning restrictions.  And this is no brief detour: Although billed as temporary, the TCUP program is expected to last five to six years — including an 18-month period for reviewing applications, a three-year permit, and a potential one-year extension of the permit.

Courtesy of A Better Oakland.

It is reasonable that a property owner might want to extract some measure of productivity from a vacant parcel until it becomes feasible to develop it.  But if there’s one thing downtown Oakland does not need, it’s more surface parking.  There is already plenty of parking distributed throughout the CBD, taking the form of both parking structures and surface lots (1.5 MB PDF).  Ironically, the staff report in one breath identifies blight reduction and the promotion of economic development as the principal objectives of the TCUP program, and in the next breath admits that parking would be the principal use for TCUPs.  And yet, as documented in graphic and excruciating detail on A Better Oakland, the City’s actual track record for enforcing permit conditions on surface lots lies somewhere between haphazard and nonexistent — a situation unlikely to improve if there is a crop of new permits to monitor.  Far from “reducing blight” and “promoting economic development,” more surface parking would devalue the CBD, increase blight, and hinder development of the downtown.  An aura of disinvestment would pervade the area, undermining the progress that has been made since the restored Fox Theater opened for business two years ago.

Regrettably, the staff report declines to offer any comprehensive analysis on this issue, and in fact deliberately understates its importance.  In response to a comment, which expressed the concern that “[s]urface parking is ugly and causes hazards for pedestrians and bicyclists,” the staff report explains that “auto fee parking is already permitted or conditionally permitted,” and that all parking, even structures with above-grade parking levels, require access and egress points for vehicles.  Although the zoning conditionally permits “auto fee parking,” it does not permit surface parking because the condition for approval is that the parking spots be housed in a structure.  The zoning purposely distinguishes between parking structures and surface lots, but the staff report conflates them.  While it’s true that both require curb cuts that interrupt the sidewalk, it is disingenuous to imply that the driveway issue could be the only salient distinction worth addressing.

As it stands, the TCUP program contradicts the CBD zoning, and the staff report’s attempt to reconcile the two therefore fails — as does its attempt to reconcile TCUPs with the General Plan.  Staff opines that TCUPs “would not conflict with any goals or objectives of the General Plan” because the temporary uses being approved would generally be permitted anyway.  But once again, by discussing the TCUP program in the abstract and avoiding mention of its true purpose — the approval of otherwise-forbidden surface parking — the staff report misses the point.  Surface parking is explicitly incompatible with the General Plan.  For example, Policy T3.8 of the Land Use and Transportation Element provides that downtown parking should be “screened from public view” because of the negative impact that surface parking has on pedestrian safety and the vitality of the downtown.

Finally, the proposed procedure for reviewing TCUPs is problematic.  The report proposes that TCUPs be classified as “major” and “minor,” like other conditional use permits.  To its credit, the report does not try to pass off all TCUPs as “minor.”  But in the context of off-street surface parking, only major TCUPs — for lots with 50 or more parking spaces — would be subject to a public hearing.  Lots with fewer than 50 spaces would require no hearing and would escape public notice.  Short of filing an appeal with the Planning Commission, citizens would be denied the opportunity to voice their opinions on an historically controversial issue affecting Oakland’s most prominent neighborhood.

In short, there is little to recommend here.  Unfortunately, I may not be able to attend the commission meeting, but would appreciate it if readers could either comment at the meeting at 6:00 p.m. on February 16, or email all the commissioners, encouraging them to reject this misguided TCUP program: dboxer@gmail.com, VienV.Truong@gmail.com, Blake.Huntsman@seiu1021.org, sgalvez@phi.org, michael.colbruno@gmail.com, mzmdesignworks@gmail.com, VinceGibbs.opc@gmail.com.

Originally introduced by Supervisor Daly, this ordinance is now sponsored by his successor in District 6, Supervisor Kim.  The zoning districts under consideration range considerably in character and include residential and industrial pockets.  The districts are colored various shades of yellow and orange in the maps below.  Between 4th and 8th Streets, there are several residential enclaves (RED) that are built on an intimate scale, largely lining the side streets that parse the South of Market superblocks. The SLR (service/light industrial/residential) and RSD (residential/services) districts currently feature a mix of housing and other uses but can accommodate infill housing:

South of Market zoning. Courtesy of SF Planning Department.

Moving toward The Embarcadero, service/light industrial (SLI) and service/secondary office (SSO) districts fill in the area between Harrison Street and Mission Bay.  They are characterized by commercial, light industrial, manufacturing and certain office uses:

South of Market zoning. Courtesy of SF Planning Department.

Residential developments in these South of Market mixed use districts are generally now required to provide one parking spot per dwelling unit, with square footage based requirements for other uses.  The legislation proposes to replace these old controls with new ones that more closely mirror those that apply to adjacent blocks under the Eastern Neighborhoods plan.  Minimum off-street residential parking requirements would be eliminated, and a maximum of 0.75 off-street parking spaces per dwelling unit would be put in place.  For office uses, the legislation proposes to import the C-3 (downtown) office parking cap: 7 percent of gross floor area.  Parking requirements for M-1 (light industrial) and C-M (heavy commercial) districts would be similarly revised.

The ordinance also proposes to amend parking controls for two important blocks in Mission Bay that are not under the purview of redevelopment: Block 8701, which is currently occupied by the Caltrain depot, and Block 8719, the Seawall Lot 337 development site.  For both Mission Bay blocks, the legislation proposes to adopt the more lenient Ocean Avenue NCT residential parking standard (a maximum of one spot per dwelling unit), along with the C-3 parking cap for office space.

Mission Bay zoning. Courtesy of SF Planning Department.

Finally, the ordinance includes an important amendment to how parking would be priced in these zoning districts.  Section 155(g) of the Planning Code requires that downtown parking garages establish a particular fee structure designed to encourage turnover and discourage commuting by automobile (it includes an exception for hotel and residential parking garages).  This fee structure currently applies only to C-3 districts, but the legislation proposes to extend it to several other zoning districts in Mission Bay and South of Market.

Although considerable growth is anticipated for these mixed use districts, it is worth mentioning that the legislation will likely not be the final word on the matter despite its compatibility with the principle of concentrating growth in this area.  Growth may be on the way: But in part because the nature of that growth has not yet been well-defined, other planning efforts — including for SWL 337, the railyards, and Western SoMa — will likely replace this legislation in the future.  In addition, the 4th Street/Central Subway corridor is slated for higher density, and a plan for that corridor would address the SLI districts lining both sides of 4th Street north of the Caltrain depot.  Until these efforts come to fruition, however, the ordinance offers a good opportunity to clean up South of Market parking controls, while implementing sound principles that in any case ought to be incorporated in some form into those future plans.

Ideally, the role of a planning commission is not to rubber stamp, but to review, refine, and scrutinize — in order to ensure that the projects that earn its approval are of high quality.  The commission should also ensure consistency with applicable General Plan policies.  In San Francisco, that includes the City’s policy to encourage the development of housing accessible to a spectrum of incomes; to expand a robust and successful city economy; and to make land use decisions that discourage dependence on the automobile, in part by limiting parking for projects near convenient transit options.

When it comes to implementing these general policies in the context of specific projects, the San Francisco Planning Commission has disappointed on more than one occasion.  But particularly with respect to parking, one cannot help but notice how Michael Antonini — a Republican originally appointed to the Commission in 2002 by Willie Brown, and then later reappointed by Gavin Newsom — has often singled himself out as the epitome of this phenomenon on the Commission.

As long as as the proposed project meets the bare minimum test of adding any housing or retail to a parcel where none existed before, Commissioner Antonini will probably stand ready to cast his approving vote — unless, of course, the amount of suggested parking seems somehow “inadequate.”  In that case, he has cause to object.  And so much the better if the project includes larger family-sized units, because then the Commission has the opportunity to bend over backward by signing off on the inclusion of extra parking.  It’s a knee-jerk reaction premised on this assumption: the probability that a family will get around town without a car ranges anywhere from unlikely to inconceivable.

Rendering of the Santa Clara 49ers stadium proposal.

It’s not too surprising, then, to find that Commissioner Antonini offered this little gem to the Examiner regarding Santa Clara’s proposal for a new 49ers stadium, which will be put to the test when Santa Clara citizens evaluate Measure J in the June election:

“[The Santa Clara site] is so small and there’s no place to park,” Antonini said. “It would be a circus to have a Super Bowl there.”

Candlestick Park, which seats about 70,000 attendees, has parking capacity for 8,800 vehicles.  Santa Clara’s proposed stadium, which is comparably sized, would seat 68,500 attendees, with an option to expand to 75,000 seats for the Super Bowl.  Although fewer than 3,500 parking spots would be made available in a proposed structure and parking lots immediately adjacent to the stadium site, as many as about 38,000 existing parking spots located within a 20-minute walk of the stadium could be leveraged for use on event days.  Although it’s not yet clear just how much of that parking will be available on a given game day, it’s smart practice to recycle parking spots for different uses at different times of day, rather than build an independent parking supply dedicated to each use.  And that parking total even far exceeds the need, if travel patterns to the Santa Clara stadium resemble travel patterns to Candlestick.

But in advocating to keep the 49ers in San Francisco, is Commissioner Antonini really mocking Santa Clara for trying to manage transportation demand (both by taking advantage of existing parking supply and emphasizing the various transit options near the stadium site)?  And is he really implying that a Hunters Point stadium would be superior to the Santa Clara stadium because it could provide more parking?

How refreshing it is that decision-makers in this transit-first city are so eager to set a fine example for the benefit of our suburban neighbors.

Let’s run through the specs.  Cool, modern, glassy Saitowitz design in Hayes Valley? Check. (More or less: Curbed has been tracking this issue here and here.)  Replace underutilized space, including 70 surface parking spots, with higher density uses? Check.  A decent mix of units? Check. (There would be 32 studio + 48 one-bedroom + 45 two-bedroom = 136 total units, with 16 units [12%] affordable.)  Mixed-use project, with ground floor retail to activate the street environment?  Check.  Planned supermarket space to increase neighborhood livability, walkability, and self-sufficiency?  Check.  102 residential parking spots, plus two car-share spots and 91 spots for the grocery store — summing to a grand total of 195 new parking spots?

Rendering of 555 Fulton Street, courtesy of Stanley Saitowitz.

195 parking spots.  That can’t be all that “transit-first” — can it?  In the Hayes-Gough NCT, no off-street residential parking is required whatsoever, and a ratio of 0.5 parking spots per residential unit is allowed by-right.  No more than 0.75 spots per unit may be built, and then only with a conditional use authorization.  For a 136-unit development, the 0.75 ratio yields exactly 102 parking spots.  555 Fulton, then, is applying for the maximum amount of residential parking permissible under the code.  Moreover, that parking would be provided in a full two-level below-grade garage.  While it is preferable to have the parking located below-grade, the project sponsor has not proposed to use mechanical stackers for any of the parking, including the 34 residential spaces provided above and beyond the 0.5 threshold.

555 Fulton is an upcoming example of an emerging trend.  On the one hand, Planning acknowledges the need to integrate good parking policy into the process of approving new developments.  Indeed, San Francisco’s General Plan demands it:

Transportation Element, Policy 34.1: Regulate off-street parking in new housing so as to guarantee needed spaces without requiring excesses and to encourage low auto ownership in neighborhoods that are well served by transit and are convenient to neighborhood shopping.

Transportation Element, Policy 34.3: Permit minimal or reduced off-street parking supply for new buildings in residential and commercial areas adjacent to transit centers and along transit preferential streets. (*)

On the other hand, this principle is sometimes given lip service and then essentially discarded in practice.  There have been, for example, increases in parking approved by the Planning Commission and provided as part of larger residential projects located South of Market.  Another project of interest last year was 299 Valencia, whose conditional use was appealed to, but not overturned by, the Board of Supervisors.  The outcome of that case raised the question of whether a precedent — not a legally binding precedent, but a de facto precedent, nonetheless — had been set, in which the 0.5 NCT parking ratio limit had been replaced, practically speaking, by a 0.75 ratio.  But 299 Valencia is just a single project, and 555 Fulton will add a new data point.  Yet another data point is 200 Dolores, which may cut the opposite direction.  In that case, the Planning Commission has initially denied a conditional use to construct thirteen parking spaces (for thirteen units, a 1:1 ratio).  But the item was continued, and even that motion passed narrowly (4-3), with Commissioners Antonini, Lee, and Miguel dissenting.

In concept, the 555 Fulton project deserves support.  Well-designed, elegantly dense urban infill projects that add homes and neighborhood-serving retail near transit and employment is the exact flavor of development that we should be building everywhere that is appropriate, including throughout San Francisco.  But as more and more project sponsors are authorized to build more parking than the amount permitted by-right, a nagging concern is what the cumulative effect on air quality, neighborhood livability, street safety, and transit performance will be over time.

Some San Francisco neighborhoods are comprised primarily of older, relatively large apartment buildings that provide little to no parking.  And yet, these buildings still have no difficulty attracting residents.  In fact, they teach us a valuable lesson about parking: If you don’t build it, they still come, but most will come without cars.

Suppose that the Planning Commission decides to sign off on many future conditional use authorizations begging for more parking, but without sufficiently scrutinizing them — perhaps justifying them on the speculative ground that the parking allowed by-right is insufficient to encourage families to live in San Francisco.  Suppose also that on appeal, the Board of Supervisors either agrees with the Planning Commission, or fails to collect the votes needed to overturn the Planning Commission.  If that is the pattern for how things play out, then at what point can the General Plan’s good parking policy — even if genuinely applied to projects by Planning staff — enter this deliberative process successfully, with sufficient force to persuade decision-makers?

More generally, why did we bother spending the better part of a decade crafting the Market-Octavia Plan, only to ultimately betray the spirit of that planning effort on a case-by-case basis?  We hope that the Planning Commission will take these considerations to heart when it considers 555 Fulton and all future projects in the pipeline.

(*) Strictly speaking, Policy 34.3 does not apply to 555 Fulton, because the relevant segment of Fulton Street is not a TPS, nor is the project site directly adjacent to a designated transit center. However, both provisions summarize the City’s stance on developing new residential parking. Also, even Policy 34.1 taken by itself supports the notion that additional parking merits additional scrutiny.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has introduced, and the Board has subsequently discussed, legislation concerning garages in certain parts of Chiu’s home District 3.  The legislation does not address existing garages, but rather, future garages that have yet to be proposed and installed.  The need for this legislation is perhaps epitomized by the Ellis Act eviction sought against low-income seniors at the building on Jasper Place, in which one tenant committed suicide, and the advertisement for the property boasted of the property’s “potential for parking” — a cold swap of human being for automobile.  But Jasper Place is just one case study of the more prevalent issue in parts of District 3, as well as other locations around the city: Ellis Act evictions, followed shortly by applications for garages to be carved out of the newly-vacated space.  Examining Department of Building Inspection and Rent Board records more closely, it was determined that of at least 166 Ellis Act evictions carried out in recent years that were followed by garage applications, roughly half of them were located within District 3.  And that is the problem that inspired this legislation.

At its February 9, 2010 meeting, the Board of Supervisors passed the ordinance on its first reading, with 7 ayes (Campos, Chiu, Daly, Dufty, Mar, Maxwell, Mirkarimi) and 2 noes (Chu, Elsbernd).  The ordinance is expected to be finally passed at the Board’s February 23 meeting.

So what exactly does this legislation do?  The first thing to remember is that it is limited to specific sections within Chiu’s District 3.  Generally speaking, the legislation aims to address the problem of evictions that result in new garages — at once protecting affordable housing supply, while encouraging a livable city and supporting sound urban design principles.  At the same time, it eliminates minimum off-street parking requirements in various parts of District 3.  Here are the highlights:

1. Requires a conditional use authorization to install a garage in an existing building. This is really the centerpiece of the legislation.  Someone seeking to install a garage in an existing building will have to seek a conditional use authorization in order to do so, and the conditional use then becomes the mechanism to ensure that the big policy goals are met.  Section 303 of the Planning Code sets out criteria that apply to conditional uses generally.  However, in addition to Section 303, this legislation imposes an additional list of hurdles that garage proposals must meet in order to be authorized.  Garage proposals may not displace a residential unit, and there must be a record of no no-fault evictions for the past ten years.  Curb cuts should be oriented to minimize the loss of on-street parking, and the new garage shall not take more than two on-street parking spots.  The sidewalk must remain inviting for pedestrians and cannot deteriorate on account of the garage; specifically, it must be at least 6 feet wide, and may not introduce a slope greater than 2%.  Sidewalks on transit preferential streets and neighborhood commercial streets may never be narrowed.  The garage must also comply with other historic resources and design requirements, as applicable.

The legislation requires Planning to consult DPW and MTA (the other city agencies implicated in the garage approval process) about specifics of the garage proposal and ensure there are no glaring problems with it before the Planning Commission grants any conditional use authorization.  Finally, please note that this more exacting conditional use process for garages only applies to certain areas: the North Beach NCD, the Broadway NCD, parts of Chinatown, and a new special use district also defined in this legislation (see #2 below).

2. Creates a Telegraph Hill-North Beach Residential Special Use District for the purposes of requiring a garage conditional use authorization (see #1 above), as well as to eliminate minimum off-street parking requirements (see #3 below).

3. Eliminates minimum off-street parking requirements and revises parking controls in Chinatown, the North Beach NCD, the Broadway NCD, and the new residential special use district (see #2 above).  In Chinatown, the North Beach NCD, and the Broadway NCD, up to 0.5 parking spaces per unit is permitted by right, and up to 0.75 is allowed with conditional use.  In the residential special use district, the controls are more relaxed: up to 0.75 is permitted by right, while up to 1.0 is allowed with conditional use.

4. Prohibits driveways altogether on important commercial and pedestrian street frontages: Columbus Avenue (between Washington/Montgomery and North Point), Broadway (between Mason and The Embarcadero), as well as alleys in Chinatown.

Both the new obstacles to garages, as well as the elimination of minimum off-street parking, are good moves in Chinatown and North Beach, because they push back and scrutinize attempts to build more storage space for cars.  This is especially critical in dense District 3 neighborhoods, whose already clogged streets can scarcely take the hit to livability brought about by policies that encourage car use and ownership.

In some sense, there is nothing new about the good policy underpinning this legislation.  Numerous provisions of San Francisco’s General Plan, coupled with recent City efforts at comprehensive neighborhood land use planning, have explicitly recognized that garage entrances and exits must be placed carefully, so as to minimize their interference with active neighborhood streets and maximize safety to pedestrians.  But in another sense, this legislation is new — simply because many city neighborhoods do not yet enjoy the protection afforded by this more sensitive treatment of garages, even if they would benefit from such protection.  The City’s approach to garage planning has basically been to not plan them — at least, not in a systematic fashion that reaches citywide.

In regard to that last point, this legislation is no different.  The area of applicability contains a disproportionately high number of Ellis Act evictions that later result in garage production — but geographically, the area is indeed quite small: not even one full supervisorial district, but only parts of one.  It is, as Supervisor Chiu put it, “narrowly tailored” to address a particular problem in a particular place.  But even though the legislation does not take the City’s current piecemeal garage policy and transform it into a unified, coherent, citywide policy, it at least adds a dose of sanity to, and sets a model for, the garage discussion.  My hope is that it will instigate a continued discussion throughout the city, and in the Planning Department, about the value of protecting affordable housing supply and making it difficult to allocate space for automobiles, all in one fell swoop.

While the legislation at issue here aims to block certain conversions of living space into garage space, there is a distinct, but related discussion also worth having, which is the mirror image: the conversion of existing garage space into housing units.  Both discussions are valuable, because both potentially lead to legislative solutions that promise a less auto-dependent, more vibrant city.

The prize for the wonkiest park(ing) spot may have to go to the San Francisco Planning Department, which set up shop behind Caffe Trieste, at Gough & Market. The Planning Department corner featured a “build your own urban environment” exhibit that even attempted to get visitors excited about transit and the density bonus:

A park(ing) spot of wholly different character in the Tenderloin, featuring bales of hay on Leavenworth between Turk and Golden Gate:

A crowded lunching spot on New Montgomery — and around the corner from that, the park(ing) spot at SPUR’s new Urban Center on Mission Street:

And finally, North Beach, where merchants lost no time in appropriating the extra sliver of captured street space to expand the seating capacity of their cafes and restaurants:

The last post discussed the SFCTA report on Geary BRT, so here is a roundup of other recent news:

SFMTA Budget is up for debate: To close a $128.9 million shortfall, the SFMTA Board adopted a budget that raised the adult and paratransit individual fares to $2 and adult fast passes to $60 on January 1, 2010. The budget also raises some parking fees, but it eliminates several lines altogether and institutes considerable service cuts on many other lines. As promised, Board President David Chiu will introduce a motion (PDF) at today’s Budget and Finance Committee meeting to veto the MTA-adopted budget. If you’d like to attend, the meeting is in the Board chamber, 2nd floor of SF City Hall, at 1:30 pm.
Update: At the Budget and Finance Committee, the vote was 4-1 (Carmen Chu dissenting) against the MTA’s budget, and Chiu has the seven votes needed to overturn the budget at the full Board.

New parking lot in Oakland defeated: Last night, I learned via Twitter that the Oakland City Council rejected the Redevelopment Agency’s proposal for a temporary surface parking lot on Telegraph Avenue in Downtown Oakland, next to the Fox Theater. The City Council requested that staff investigate the possibility of art installations instead, which would be a considerable improvement over a parking lot. Whatever use is ultimately installed will be temporary, to be dismantled in 2011 when construction will begin on the second phase of Forest City’s Uptown project.

Caltrain to declare a fiscal emergency: Despite ridership gains in 2008 and already having raised fares 25 cents on January 1, Caltrain is scrambling to close its budget shortfall, in light of the lost STA funds; it plans to declare a fiscal emergency in order to exempt service cuts from environmental review.

High-Speed Rail: The controversy on the Peninsula over high-speed rail continues. Palo Alto has already demanded that trains run in a tunnel, and now Burlingame is following suit, though of course without offering suggestions as to how it plans to foot the bill. Palo Alto’s Vice Mayor Jack Morton is also calling for the High-Speed Rail Authority to be dissolved. But these Peninsula protests may be frustrated by Galgiani’s bill AB 289, which is making its way through the California legislature. AB 289 would exempt from CEQA review all grade separations carried out in connection with California High-Speed Rail. (Grade separations are of course what Palo Alto has already protested as being a divisive “Berlin Wall”, although it would increase safety to fully separate train traffic.) CEQA exemptions are often a thorny subject. CEQA, when placed into the hands of persistent NIMBYs, can be a powerful tool for indefinitely delaying projects, including very desirable projects like high-speed rail. But CEQA is, at its heart, about disclosure; so exempting any type of project from CEQA suggests that the lead agency will proceed without having as full knowledge of the situation as one presumably would have after preparing an EIR. It also sets a dubious precedent to establish CEQA exemptions on a project-by-project basis. In principle, it is preferable to exempt classes of projects, rather than individual projects, because individual exemptions that are not based on some sort of underlying rationale are a double-edged sword. Just one example of this: earlier this year, transit advocates were up in arms at the Governor’s budget proposal to exempt specific freeway projects from CEQA; but now, those same advocates may well relish the idea of fast-tracking high speed rail with a bypass of environmental review. It is indeed frustrating to watch CEQA — legislation whose purpose is to facilitate protection of the environment — be used in ways that delay or block environmentally-beneficial projects, like high-speed rail and the San Francisco Bicycle Plan. But simply exempting projects on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis does little to deepen our understanding of how to implement successful CEQA reform. That said, the AB 289 exemption is also not exactly ad hoc, because railroad grade separations are already exempt from CEQA; this bill explicitly extends that existing policy to construction undertaken by the CHSRA. Aside from the AB 289 CEQA bill, three other HSR-related bills are working their way through the state legislature: SB 783 (requires the CHSRA to prepare a business plan to receive bond funding), SB 451 (endows the CHSRA with certain eminent domain powers), and SB 409 (creates a Department of Railroads).

We have an election in two weeks: On May 19, Californians will vote on Propositions 1A-1F. Ideally, I would have a post for you on these propositions, but I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to write it. To get up to speed, check out the running analysis at Calitics, the California Budget Project, and the Courage Campaign, among many other sources.

J-Get Me to the Church on Time? Not so fast: For those who ride the J-Church regularly (or who perhaps don’t ride it, instead hiking to BART because your J train never arrived), it may not be too surprising to learn that the J-Church is once again Muni’s worst performing line, with a 65% on-time rate. And yes, Supervisor Bevan Dufty is eyeing another pilot study of the line.

These are just some topics in the news recently. Posting will necessarily be sparse for the next couple of weeks, so please feel free to continue using this open thread as a forum to discuss these topics, or whatever else is on your mind.