Plans to raze the two one-story auto repair buildings on the southeast corner of 16th and Florida Streets have been submitted to Planning. And as proposed, a seven-story development would rise up to 68 feet on the corner, with 53 new Mission District condos over parking for 53 cars.
While San Francisco’s Planning Code principally only permits a ratio of .75 off-street parking spaces per dwelling unit in the Eastern Neighborhoods, it also permits 1 off-street parking space per dwelling unit with two or more bedrooms and a gross floor area of greater than 1,000 square feet, which means all 53 spaces could be allowed depending upon the floor plans.
And as for the development’s plan for the ground floor, it’s currently envisioned as “residential/commercial flex space,” a use which isn’t defined in the Planning Code but could mean residences rather than retail along the street.
1:1 parking is the reasonable way to build new market rate housing. Let’s face it, anyone paying for a condo in SF is going to have a car. Forcing people to park on the street just makes it harder for everyone else to find a spot, including our fabulous tourists.
Really? Everyone buying a condo is going to have a car, are you new here?
If you don’t use it, rent it out. Boom, done. Not to mention come time to sell, which unit do you think will sell easier, one with parking or one without?
There’s not a lot of housing around there except newer developments (that mostly have parking already). Street parking in the evening is also pretty easy. I’m not sure they’d be getting much for renting out the space. IMO it’s better to have the option not to purchase the space. Anything that lowers the purchase price makes housing more affordable, especially since parking adds $80-100k.
Then you provided deeded parking. 1:1 will be great because some units may not want parking (don’t buy the spot) and some may want multiple. Deeded parking is also easier to trade.
You must not live around there. Street parking is much harder around there now that it’s been removed from 17th St and with the impending meters on Harrison. Parking used to be plentiful after 5pm and on weekends, but not so much. Thankfully the RVs have moved on as well…
Why would somebody with no car want the bother of renting a space? Much better to just buy a cheaper place… Lower mortgage, taxes, down payment, etc.
You solve that with deeded parking spaces. Don’t want one, don’t buy it (but you have the option to). And if you don’t want it, it becomes available to those that do.
Serge, “deeded parking” usually means parking which comes with the unit (part of the “deed” to the property. What you are talking about, I believe, it “unbundled parking” in which the unit and the parking are sold separately. In that case, if the property is developed with a 1/1 ratio you COULD buy 1 parking spot, but you could also buy none (or two if there were extra).
My comment was related to your statement “If you don’t use it, rent it out.” I’m not clear on how your response is in any way relevant to that.
It is a spatial issue. You can have more units with less cars
maybe not everyone, but definitely 85% of new owners will have a car, and many families or couples will have 2
It is a difficult problem but spatially the best areas in SF are the ones with restricted parking. We either say that is an anachronism and we can’t create interesting areas anymore or we have to pick areas where we want to have high density of people and lower densities of cars. It is a simple spatial issue.
maybe they should consider living somewhere more in line with their lifestyle?
SF very much a driving city so that is in line
“SF very much a driving city so that is in line”
Not according to the voters or the data. It’s over 30% carfree, and the 5th most car free city in the US. And the trend is going towards fewer cars every year.
Data?
@Spencer Just because lots of people drive in SF doesn’t mean that every neighborhood is suited to driving. If I wanted to have two cars, I would probably not live in Chinatown or North Beach, for example, without dedicated space for them. The Mission is quickly becoming one of those neighborhoods as well.
I think this should be considered neighborhood by neighborhood. There are clearly now people here who can afford a condo and don’t want to be bothered with a car
Data?
Looking on craigslist, there is a lively market for private garages in this area, around $200-250/month in cost. Presumably people renting out garage space don’t have cars of their own. Buyers of condos without parking who will eventually decide to buy a car are most likely to rent one of those garage spaces, rather than waste time looking for street parking, moving the car once a week for street cleaning, and other hassles of street parking (having to wash the car more often, risk of break-ins). I highly doubt people who can afford a million dollar condo are going to spend their time looking for parking rather than pay $250/mo for a garage spot nearby.
Agreed, the first reasonable post in the thread. Folks buying million dollar condos will rent a parking if they’re stupid enough to buy a place without a parking spot AND actually need one.
not if they are overextending to buy the condo. there seem to be a lot of people paying 5x income or more for their homes, and they probably cant afford an extra $300 for parking.
If they’re doing that, they’re stupid. We should craft policy based on the actions of the dumbest 5%.
Er, I mean “shouldn’t”.
Is the parking going to be unbundled from the living units in this building? Nice to see seven stories here.
Never understood exactly why not add parking. It increases the sales price of the place, makes it more desirable and brings in more tax revenue. Used on not it makes sense to have parking available. Endless circling looking for a place to park is certainly not green and most million+ spending people have or may want to get a car. Rich people want to maximize time doing things they like. Looking for parking in the mission is not one of those things.
Some people don’t own cars, and therefore don’t want to pay for a parking space.
Anyone rich who buys a unit without parking is not going to circle looking for a spot. They’re going to rent an existing spot. What you’re looking to do is force developers to build extra parking just because. That lowers the amount of units built, and thus lowers the total amount of taxable property – definitely not a good thing.
it depends on the mix of people buying. not everyone who buys a condo can comfortably afford it. There are people with poorer financial skills who think the market will always appreciate at 6+% per year and are willing to stretch beyond 5x income to buy. these people are not rich. if someone with a $150-$225K salary buys a $1M townhome, they are very house poor (unless they have a nice nest egg on top of their 20% downpayment.
im not sure why everyone thinks people buying $1M condos are rich enouugh to buy the home and have oodles of disposable income.
Again, we shouldn’t craft policy based on the actions of the dumbest 5%. If people are being that stupid, the next downturn will wipe them out and they’ll have to move anyway.
I just don’t think SF is at the point where being car-free, while possible, is going to be standard, at least not for a while. The public transit is just too fragmented and unreliable, with poor coverage, and the density is still too low. Not everyone can bike. The parking-free condos, yes, there will be a market for them. Really lucky people who work from home, maybe retired, or can get to work easily from their home. Whose spouses and children, if any, also miraculously have all their workplaces, schools, and activities nearby and easily accessible. I found that very possible in NYC. I do not find it easy in SF Bay Area. Those people with the car-free life, that’s awesome, great savings, more power to them. I guess the market will tell whether parking-free condos will be successful. As I recall, the units not moving in Linea were without parking.
I can also attest to the lack of parking in the Mission. I used to drive there to try out new restaurants and shop trendy boutiques, since taking Muni with transfer to BART from the Outer Sunset where I live meant up to a 60 minute trip one way. But now going there is just for special occasions. I’m curious whether the Mission can survive just on its local residents for business or whether it’s a destination economy.
Um, Uber.
Not going to pay $24 to get a $10 bowl of ramen. That was the cost of my last Uber ride. 10 Uber round-trips and I might as well get a leased parking spot.
I value my time circling for parking at the ramen place, so no, I’m not going to drive and circle.
Oh, and Uber’s not going to help when my office transfers me to Redwood City 3 years into home ownership while husband stays put. Oh, looks like kid didn’t get the neighborhood school in the school lottery. I totally envy everybody for which city living without a car works out. But sheesh, consider yourself lucky, not normal.
1-1 unbundled parking seems reasonable. If there’s not demand for it the space will be great for the car-share/bike garage/place to start your business/storage area.
I lived near 30th and Mission 2009-2013 without a car – I rode a bike and muni and car shared – with kids. It wasn’t perfect (getting home from a party on Potrero Hill was tough – and it sucks to try and get out to the Richmond) but having a car (before that) perfect either. If SF can ever get it’s transit act together, its won’t be that far from the point where it will be the norm to be car free
Um, Uber.
Nice to see condos, as opposed to more rentals, being built. I always wondered how people would get by without a car ever. Let’s say, your spouse is pregnant. Is she going to take public transportation or Uber to her OB/GYN visits? What about after the child is born? How is she going to carry the child around on public transportation or on a bicycle?
Even if you are single, do you just date in the neighborhood? Or do you and your date take public transportation or use Uber/Lyft/etc.? I fail to see how people with over $1 million to spend on housing (not for a quick flip) would want to limit their parking options. The more peculiar and particular you are, the smaller the resale market for you.
Um, Uber, yes, to all of those questions. Why in the world would I want to have to deal with driving the wife to the OB/GYN and then having to find parking while she goes inside. Uber drops us off at the front door, then is back outside in a few minutes when we’re finished.
And “limiting their parking options” is exactly why I don’t want a parking spot – parking at destinations in SF sucks, so why would I ever want to drive myself and have to circle for an hour while my date is waiting inside the restaurant.
Hmm, I didn’t have a car for fifteen years in San Francisco and I prospered just fine. We called a cab when it was time to go to the hospital and deliver our first child and yes, we took our child on Muni (and still do all the time) and carry them on our bicycle. We even very occasionally take Uber.
When I was single I took Muni and met my date or walked places. It is really not that unusual, people walk all the time all over the world, it is only a very privileged few that think they are entitled to bring 2 tons of steel around with them at all times, just because. Get used to being without a car, it is City policy to cut auto use in half in the next 20 years. Policy that has been affirmed by the voters again and again and again.
if they can cut car use by 25% in 20 yrs, that would be remarkable. what would also be remarkable is to have a useable subway system in 20 yrs.
im not necessarily pro-car. i just think that we should try to limit the additional piling on of new cars into street parking and thus increasing congestion across the city. soome of you think raising the price of street parking permits will work and I agree, but that will limit the poorest of the city as middle class and wealthy people can take an increase in permits because they are so cheap now. i dont want every garage to be 1:1. i would just like a limit in new residential parking permits, especially for residents in those new buildings where there is no off-street parking.
I can agree with all of this, except that I simply want parking permits and meters to be market-priced, which would likely mean cheaper parking in some areas at some times at least.
I would prefer to see market pricing for parking with subsidies for the poor.
Makes sense. More parking please! The 0.75 ratio is quite simply absurd. Let’s face it, Muni is a joke, UBER has it’s pluses and riding a bike just doesn’t work for most people.
Why should developers have to target “most” people? Aren’t they free to target the demo that they’d like to sell to?
Prop L just lost 65 to 35. Your ideas are in the extreme minority, the people of San Francisco want less parking and more investment in transit. Most people ride a bike or walk for at least some of their trips, this will encourage even more.
I live near that spot and I know almost all of my neighbors within a two block radius. Everyone, by that I mean every household, has at least one car; save one old lady who lives by herself. Even household who doesn’t have a garage owns a car. This neighborhood has a very high rate of car ownership. I would expect the incoming demographic to be the same.
Many of the household, especially rentals with roommates; each person in that unit owns a car. That means three roommates in a flat = three cars for that household. From my calculation, the number of cars exceed the number of units. Many of my neighbors work outside of the city and they usually drive to work. Hence having a car is paramount.
Furthermore, there is something about renting a parking space that turns them off. My neighbor paid almost $800k for a condo but would never ever spend the extra $250 for a parking space, it’s a non-starter.
So don’t assume just because they live in SF then they won’t have cars. Don’t assume if they can afford to purchase a new condo that means they will gladly rent spaces for their cars.
” Everyone, by that I mean every household, has at least one car; save one old lady who lives by herself.”
Rock on Old Lady who Lives by Herself. Don’t let the back handed complement affect your self esteem. May you live to be Even Older Lady who May or May not Live by Herself.
It is compliment, not complement.
If she was a rich old lady, she has plenty of options. She can live in a (white) Shoe (box) or have multiple homes internationally. She can while away the hours in the Louvre or rock it in the Casbah. Watch the sun set in Ipanema or take a dip in the natural hot springs of Iceland. She can learn to play the bagpipes in the Scottish highlands or ride like the gauchos in Hungary. Of course, it is always better when experiences are shared. Quality, not quantity, of life.
I know an elderly lady (an accomplished pianst/attended Juilliard) who comes from a prominent family in Hawaii. She has her mink fur in cold storage at the St. Francis Hotel for those times of the year she flies over to shop, or travel to Europe.
What kind of person would think “old” is a backhanded compliment?
“from my calculation”
How about we use the stats from the US census that show nothing of the sort, rather than you anecdotal data of a handful of folks?
Why should we encourage San Francisco to be a bedroom community for people who work outside The City, especially when there is a such a shortage of housing for people who actually work here and want to live here? 1/3 of San Francisco households are car free and in The Mission it is probably higher. I think you have a skewed vision of reality.
why should we try to mandate who lives in the city. why is it any of our business if the number of people who live in the city but work outside the city is increasing? a lot of people want to live in the city, can afford it, but have a great job on the peninsula. people want to live here for nightlife, culture, walkability to neighborhood restaurants, cafes and shops. i have lived here for 20 yrs and commuted the whole time. the majority of my company, and almost 100% under age of 40, live in the city and commute. we have that right as much as anyone who lives 2 blks from their work. as jobs expand outside the city, this will increase and its just fine. many of those homes have 2 or more commuters and thats fine too. some of them are recent transplants and thats fine. too. being a lifelong resident and living close to your work doesnt make someone a special citizen.
Exactly – why should we mandate this stuff? So if developers want to build no parking for people that want no parking, why shouldn’t we allow it?
Here’s why: because if developers have no mandates for off street parking requirements, they would not build them and that would (and does now) negatively impact the surrounding neighborhood with limited amounts of ON street parking.
Creating off street parking is a plus for The City. since we have no proof or data that cars are suddenly going to vanish in SF in the near future, nor are all new owners going to move here without a car, then off street parking can only be a plus.
Except that folks on your side were arguing the exact opposite a couple years ago – the darn city is forcing developers to build less parking! We should stop this and let developers build how much parking the market wants!
Off street parking can only be an unmitigated plus if you believe that congestion is not bad. I don’t believe that.
And NO, once again, as I have said before I don’t see congestion as “bad”. I drove all over the city and I get there quickly and safely in my car. The only Muni I EVER ride is the J, hopping on it to go downtown to shop or the museums.
So, you see congestion as a positive? Well that’s just bizarre.
The City should not mandate anything about where people work and live but it should encourage people to live near where they work. It is city policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this is easiest done by decreasing miles travelled by automobiles.. It is city policy to reduce pedestrian accidents and deaths, this is easiest done by decreasing miles travelled by automobiles. Reducing miles travelled would reduce the amount of asthma visits by residents as well as early deaths due to COPD and other respiratory diseases caused by vehicle emissions.
A bunch of people still smoke but The State makes it harder and harder for them to do so, both for their own good and for the general welfare. Driving a car is a similar thing. Of course, you can still smoke (and drive your car) just don’t expect The City to continue to make it convenient for you.
speaking of anecdotal evidence – I ride by here every day. Most of the cars parked in the day time are people leaving their cars there due to lax parking regulations. At night, street parking is super easy.
This is located towards the center of US Census tract 177 and a block from the northern border of tract 228.01. According to the Census, about a third of housing units in tract 177 do not have a car, and about a quarter of housing units in tract 228.01 don’t have a car. There are enough units with more than one car in both tracts that the ratio of cars to units in the area is about one-to-one.
Car ownership in SF is highly correlated with both income and ownership vs renter. As these units will be more valuable than the median in the neighborhood and owner-occupied units have twice the cars of renter-occupied, a ratio of one-to-one seems reasonable.
As for parking in the neighborhood, there is a good size surface lot next to this. Looks like it has about 70 spaces. Hard to believe that won’t be developed into housing or offices removing those space from the available parking inventory.
The correlation between auto ownership and available parking in SF is much higher than either income or ownership vs renter. You should know this.
I don’t believe that’s true. I’d be interested in data that can support it, since I’ve never seen any.
If it were true, then there would be a nearly uniform distribution (highly correlated) of empty available parking spaces overnight in SF. Anyone familiar with trying to park in the outer sunset vs nob hill or cow hollow would know better than that.
BTW, it would be remarkable if not nearly impossible statistically for the correlation to be “much higher” for available parking than income.
Um, what? I’ll dig up the data, but we’ve had this discussion dozens of times on SS. Compare Nob Hill to the Bayview for a quick and easy comparison. Lots of off street parking available in one, not the other, and incomes reversed.
I have no idea what your middle paragraph is even supposed to mean. More available off street parking in the Outer Sunset is where those additional cars go.
The middle paragraph above means that if your claim is true, then in the middle of the night the same or nearly the same percentage of whatever parking spaces existed would be empty in every neighborhood in SF. It’s a leveling claim, and it isn’t correct. Car ownership doesn’t simply expand to fill all available parking.
(and you’ll note that auto ownership is MUCH higher in the Bayview than Nob Hill)
Anyone that thinks they should “Compare Nob Hill to the Bayview for a quick and easy comparison” of vehicle ownership and to derive correlations are just fooling themselves. It may be “quick and easy”, but the results won’t be worth remembering, let alone rehashing “dozens of times”.
FWIW, there was a study done 13 years ago for SF Planning Dept that used 1990 Census data to try to relate the multivariate factors. It focused more on Market/Octavia than this location. The data is so old now that the numbers aren’t of much use, but their effort demonstrated many factors affect vehicle ownership rates including, among the direct economic ones, income and parking costs.
Instead of jumping all over SF to strain credulity, let’s compare neighboring neighborhoods to see if we can get a modest step towards understanding. In the following two posts are listed the autos per capita and median household income in parens ($k), according to US Census ACS as grouped in neighborhoods in ‘San Francisco Socio-Economic Profiles 2012’ published by SF Planning.
The first group are the Mission (this location) and Nob Hill and neighborhoods adjacent to either (most of D5-9). It goes from a low of 0.11 autos and $18k income per household in Chinatown to a high of 0.63 autos/household and $117k income/household in Pac Heights.
0.11 Chinatown (18)
0.12 Downtown (24)
0.32 Nob Hill (56)
0.35 Mission (63)
0.41 Western Addition (55)
0.41 SOMA (73)
0.50 Bernal (86)
0.51 Russian Hill (93)
0.56 Castro/Upper Market (101)
0.61 Potrero Hill (107)
0.63 Noe (108)
0.63 Pac Hghts (117)
You can eyeball the data and see that as household income rises so does autos per capita. This data set actually fits a straightline with an R-squared of 0.97. If you exclude Western Addition as an outlier or just because, then the r-squared is greater than 0.99, which is about as perfect a fit as you will ever get with this kind of socio-economic data. For those of you that don’t understand this statistical terminology, it just means that in each of these neighborhoods as of a few years ago you would find one car per capita for every $180k of household income give or take about 10%, according to the US Census. From Bernal Heights to Pac Heights, from Chinatown to Noe Valley, from the Tenderloin to Russian Hill, except for Western Addition.
Here is the same data for the neighborhoods in D10 which includes Bayview.
0.41 Visitation Valley (42)
0.41 Bayview (45)
0.45 Crocker Amazon (70)
0.47 Excelsior (71)
Obviously, while car ownership increases with income it is not nearly as determined by it. This is fairly typical of more suburban areas where nearly every household owns at least one car.
In particular, homeowners in D10 own cars. The percentage of homeowners in Bayview that own a car is the same as Pacific Heights: 91%. People have cars in D10 if they can afford them, not because there is parking. Same in Pac Heights, though I’d bet the cars are on average worth more there than in Bayview.
People that have to have a car might choose to live in D10 instead of D7 so they can afford it, but the people that can afford to buy in Pac Heights can afford to own a car and are just as likely to as the homeowners in Bayview. The people that rent in Pac Heights are about three times as likely to not have a car as the homeowners there, which is almost exactly the same as in Bayview, and not much different than Nob Hill where they are 2.4 times as likely to not have a car.
Much of the difference in car ownership rates between Nob Hill and Bayview can be accounted for by the much higher percentage of renters in Nob Hill and their much lower car ownership rates. But which is cause and which is effect? And then there are many other factors entangled with these. Not an easy or quick multivariate to decipher.
I don’t see either of these posts showing number of parking spaces available (on street and off street). Was that not the primary discussion that we were having? Certainly auto ownership and income are correlated, just not to the same degree as auto ownership and available parking. You exclude the Western Addition as an outlier, when it is NOT an outlier on the auto ownership vs available parking list – indeed, there are NO outliers.
This is fairly obvious if you just assume that in modern SF even the vast majority of the poorest households can afford a car and any other socioeconomic group of households can afford multiple cars. It’s basically just a spatial issue – if there is space for storage (more off street parking, a la the Outer Sunset), there will be cars stored there.
Correction: just noticed I mislabeled something above. These numbers from the US Census are autos per capita not autos per household. The median incomes are correctly labeled above as $k/household.
No, the primary discussion was not about numbers of available parking spaces. It was about what factors most influence car ownership in SF. You brought up parking availability in response to my post which did not mention it. So far, you have not provided any evidence for your claims other than to claim that you have made similar claims many times before. FWIW, most of the studies I’ve seen focus on the cost of parking not the availability.
I don’t know why you would think or “assume that in modern SF even the vast majority of the poorest households can afford a car.” That seems totally divorced from reality. 21% of SF households have income less than $25k/year. 37% have less than $50k/year. AAA estimates the cost/yr for a small sedan are nearly $7k/year. That’s their cheapest.
Jake, thanks for the very interesting statistics. I always appreciate when people bring facts to the discussion. Atlantic Cities magazine also did an interesting article recently showing that car ownership rises in the ten largest U.S. cities when household incomes rise, as well as when household ages become more mature and married couples have children. The point of the article was that the young single professional studio apartment bike to work phase of life is great for affluent urban professionals, but as life marches on, careers, family and aging require greater and easier mobility and for most people this means auto ownership. Perhaps that is why the loudest anti car voices on this site have admitted in the past that they own cars themselves.
Considering it’s $80 from Embarcadero to San Mateo, I would say Uber to Palo Alto is closer to $150 than $15!!
$15 will get you about half a block during rush hour.
Your Western Addition stats contradict exactly what you’re saying here.
AAA stats are for middle class folks. You can buy a 15 year old car for $1000, which is what you’ll see in most parts of the WA, Bayview, Ingleside, etc.
And I should note that I owned a car for all four years of college, at a total cost of less than $4000 (bought the ’91 Escort for $500, spent about $600 on insurance those four years, and just under $3000 for gas/oil changes). My income for those four years was about $6k/year.
You paid $150 a year on liability insurance while you were a college student? Color me skeptical. Was this in California?
Yes, with an estimated mileage of 3000 miles per year. It’s not uncommon, and as you note it gets much, much cheaper as you get older. I’m sure that someone 30 years old with an 18 year old car with 3000 miles a year could get liability insurance for less than $100 a year.
I call shenanigans on your claim. I just went to Gieco and got a quote for 30 year old single male and got $400 a year.
You also assumed the risk of loss of your vehicle by not carrying comprehensive, which is not negligible. You got lucky by not getting in an accident or having your car broken into, but it was just luck. How did you own such an old car for four years and have zero expenses in maintenance?
AAA says the average car costs $8k/yr and Edmonds says that the TCO for even a cheap older car is $5k-6k a year. Both of those assume 12,000 miles traveled, so you can cut some costs by driving less, but it is not 1/4 of that cost if you travel 3000 miles.
The car was bought for $500. So yes, I assumed some risk of it being lost, but shelling out for comprehensive would have been a ludicrous waste of money and the “risk” was by far the better deal.
Did you not read where I said I drove 3000 miles per year? I changed the oil twice in that time, nothing else. That’s the beauty of not caring about car washes, door dings, etc. Those AAA estimates are notoriously high for cars beyond the ten year mark, as you stop losing almost anything in depreciation costs, there are no financing costs, and if you’re not vain, almost no upkeep beyond catastrophic repair, which generally means that you just ditch the car and find another beater.
The Western Addition data doesn’t challenge anything, except evidently your numeracy.
As I stated above, including the Western Addition data gives an r-squared value (measure of the goodness of fit) of 0.97. That’s very good and only gets better if you realize there is a margin-of-error for the underlying data.
BTW, if we include the Western Addition data, then the estimate for the per capita number of cars in this area is one per $175k of median household income with a standard deviation of $16k. That’s a nice tight distribution for socio-econ data.
Just to put it in perspective, next time you are standing on Corona Heights, this applies to just about everywhere in SF you can see.
thanks for pulling all this together. this makes a lot of sense. good to see data supporting what would seem like common sense logic to most. that is a pretty impressive r squared. it is strongest enough to say that income by far is the biggest factor in car ownership. also has a very nice Pearson coefficient…
im nt sure if it is right to say 1 car per $175K of houshold income. since the car ownership rates were per capita and household incme rates are not, it seems like there may actually be higher. if you assume 2 adults people per househould, that puts the number at 2 cars per $175K household income or 1 car per $87.5K
Uber would only charge $15 for a ride to Palo Alto? If that is the case I am about to say good bye to Caltrain!
I never use uber. I never use super-shuttle. I never use a taxi.
I just drive MY OWN VEHICLE and park conveniently in the long term garage. Easy.
400,000 units in San Francisco have parking spots? WHERE did you get that “statistic”? Excluding on street parking spaces, I’m curious how many units do unlude parking, especially deeded parking spaces. I’m surprised if SF even has 400,000 units.
” there are something like 400,000 units in SF with a parking spot.” NO, there are about 380,000 total housing units in San Francisco (2010 census). I would imagine only about 50% of those units have some type of deeded or rental parking. Considering how many households own or lease a vehicle in San Francisco, you can then see why there is so much competition for any parking space, whether private or street parking.
Private parking where you live is crucial in rainy cold weather like this. A quick drive today and I got my major errands and important purchases made without having to get wet.
I have never lived in the Mission, and never go there. I was in the neighborhood back in the late 1970’s to visit family friends. Back then, they lived in a huge Victorian duplex with a large Gardenia tree in the front and gardenias had a unique fragrant scent which reminded me of home.
Not everyone is the same so each person will use trial and error to determine the best case scenario for himself/herself.
SFPark has a map of the publicly available “On- and off-street parking supply in San Francisco” (pdf at namelink). It goes to the level of the number of publicly available spaces on each block and the location and size of off-street parking. It does not include private parking spaces. SF did a huge parking census a few years ago, so the data is supposed to be very accurate and better than for almost any other city in the USA.
If you look at the map, it is clear that a huge portion of the public off-street parking is concentrated for office jobs (fidi, downtown, soma). Most of the work commuter cars that park in those facilities come from outside San Francisco. That’s why there are huge traffic jams between those lots/garages and ramps for 80, 280, and 101.
There is plenty of other data on both the sfpark and sfdata websites, including interactive maps and GIS data if you want to download them. For example, in a GIS it would be interesting to see a heatmap of the relative density of housing units to on-street parking in residential neighborhoods.
Wish we could all agree to take all the incessant parking arguments on here as a given, instead of having to repeat them every time a SocketSite item discusses parking.
And having just returned from a weekend in Phoenix, I think a lot of people on here need to realize that S.F. already *is* an alternative transit heaven, at least compared to most of the country. So let’s all take it down a notch instead of lunging at each other every time the subject of cars comes up.
NoeValleyJim, why not take the first step and get rid of YOUR car, which you admitted your family owns, here on this site in the past. Also- “for the environment”, will you wag your finger at all those tech workers who live here, but pollute their way down 101 and 280 to work in office parks over one hour away? Also- “for the environment”, make sure to never travel by plane to Europe, or use your car to take the children on trips to Tahoe or Disneyland.
How many miles did you travel via automobile last year FW?
Something like 70% of SF households have a car because nearly everyone here needs one (those who don’t have a car are generally too poor to have one). I see nothing to indicate that buyers of new condos will be less likely to own a car than the city-wide stats, and given the costs, it is a safe assumption that the higher-income buyers will have one in greater proportions than the city average. Thus, it is a safe assumption that about 70-80% of the new condo buyers will have a car. If the developers don’t build parking, they are simply foisting the costs of the additional needed street parking on society. Planning dept. should not permit that. Other communities require builders to absorb the external costs they create – sewer, park, schools, etc. fees. And so should SF. I suppose I’d be okay with a development with no parking if they had a deed restriction stating that owners may not own a car – to work with the “no need for a car” crowd – but that is not workable.
agree 100%
We are all carbon-based. If you care about the environment, kill off a few people you don’t like. Change begins at home.
I don’t see why there is such a personal uproar over this. Are you marrying the car owner or car less? Time for some perspective. It used to be don’t discuss religion or politics in front of company but now add ten more items to the list. New topic: oil is taking a beating. Why do you think OPEC hasn’t cut production? To hurt U.S. domestic oil producers? To control Middle East tension? To hurt Russia? To stimulate what is a weak global economy? Gasoline prices are coming down as well. Guess what? More driving, more traveling by plane.
agree, and to add, the lower gas prices will stunt growth in renewables. The US and Canada are also vastly ramping up production to become net exporters, so OPEC will have to keep their prices low to compete. The EU and japan would much rather buy from us than terrorist dictator states if they have a choice
While for some not having a car is a choice, I’m sure for many it is just their economic reality. According to the US Census, among all SF households:
27.9% have income less than $35k/year
27.3% have no vehicle
The two neighborhoods of Chinatown and the Tenderloin taken together, with only 7.3% of the total SF population, account for a quarter of the households in San Francisco without a vehicle. 69% of households there do not have a vehicle. Both Chinatown and the Tenderloin have an excess supply of publicly-available overnight parking garages.
‘You can’t say, “I choose to have a car on Tuesday and Thursday, but not on Monday and Wednesday….”’
mas – let me introduce you to my friend Zipcar.
And yeah, the majority is catered to in a big way. Hundreds of billions of dollars of car-only infrastructure just here in the Bay Area alone, trillions nationwide. But that doesn’t mean that 100% of housing must cater to cars.
The developer here is not stupid. This building will fill up with residents and they’ll cash out. You can still profit without needing to cater to the majority.
yes, they will sell because there is a housing shortage and a lot of money out there. but tnot building parking puts the burden on the city streets to store the cars, and that costs should be put on the developer even if he doesnt build off-street parking.
The city will not create any new on-street parking and I know of no plans for city funded off-street parking in this area. So there’s no additional burden on the city. If it becomes harder to find street parking then the parking terms (duration and pricing) can be adjusted to free up parking spots.
I agree that developers should be required to mitigate transportation impacts and they usually do in large projects
i agree with what you’re saying and that is exactly my point. if the developers don’t provide parking and the city doesn’t provide parking, then in essence, the developer has burdened the city streets because there are more cars competing for the same old spots. that affects everyone, not jsut car drivers.
This is only true if you believe that parking must be free.
Ideally, developers and condo buyers would figure out the right ratio by supply and demand, not by policy decision. If we had a good public transit system it would encourage more people to get rid of their cars but as it stands you need to have at least a car sharing service nearby, which needs parking spaces.
UPDATE: New Plans for 53 Mission District Condos and Retail Spaces as Well