Comments on: Parking-less apartments cause controversy on east side

By: B.C.

B.C. — Sun, 17 May 2015 12:06:38 +0000

This was very poor planning by Portland Planners as even the most dedicated bike rider/bus rider during the work week often owns a car to be used when going out of town on the weekend to explore the outer areas of Oregon. And guess where that car is parked while the person is at work, why at home in the neighborhood. There needs to be at least a one car parking space per condo or apartment required for all future building. At the very least it provides a space to for visitors of the people living in complex. A lack of a parking space has not resulted in lower rents or lower prices for condos. Instead these planners have caused a crisis that will result in residents having to pay for public parking permits on top of their already excessively high rents in neighborhoods they have lived in for years, long time home owners are resenting the city and see this as only continuing the gentrification of inner S.E. Portland forcing low income families out. Portland is fast becoming less progressive and will soon lose it’s positive reputation for being a livable city in the NW. Resulting in not only continued white neighborhoods in inner SE, but now also no longer integrated along class lines. Sadly there has been little done to allow and retain the lower wage earners or the elderly who have lived in these neighborhoods for years, instead they are being pushed out to Gresham and beyond. There clearly needs to be a realistic view on transportation while supporting bike and public transportation, there must also be the recognition that the owners and renters of these condos and apartments will still own at least one car, will have visitors that own cars so a parking requirement must be added to development. Also there needs to be a requirement for a certain percentage of low income housing for every mixed use and residential complex put up in our inner neighborhoods. We are way behind other cities on this issue. I am saddened by the poor planning I have seen in our neighborhood over the last several years!!!!

By: UCSD Alpha Omega Pledge Class

UCSD Alpha Omega Pledge Class — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 05:19:56 +0000

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By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 22:00:26 +0000

I own a home close in and it is difficult to find parking in front of my house (although I have offstreet parking and just one car so I don’t need to unless I have guests). We’ve been subsdizing parking forever and it is time we stopped. If young people want to live in an apartment without a car, more power to them. They need to save money wherever they can and a car is nothing more than a financial drain. Many look at driving and parking their car as some sort of god-given right when it is actually a burden sluffed off on society as a whole. It is a negative externality that should be accounted for in fuel taxes and charges for parking.

By: John

John — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:08:53 +0000

I live in Portland, and am familiar with the building next to the Hollywood Theater. The Hollywood District has too many cars already. This development will help to spur more development catering to people who choose to not own a car. It’s great.

Car lovers still have plenty of room in the suburbs. Enjoy your cars while you still can.

America should be about choice. Let’s accomodate more than just one form of transportation.

By: eric

eric — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 23:10:14 +0000

Sounds like this is a great opportunity for a public-private partnership:
The city charges rent on on-street parking (puts in meters) so that it’s no longer subsidized.
Then encourages a developer to build a parking garage or two in one of these hot-spots, so that there’s parking available for businesses, and off-street parking available for residents.

This is the american style free-market at work!

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:50:26 +0000

Portland needs more options for residential permit zones.

Currently PBOT will only consider residential permit zones where the neighborhood is adversely affected by commuter parking (people who drive in, park, and then go to other areas to work).

Communities should be allowed to petition for residential permit zones regarldless of the make-up of the parking. Fees should be collected and, minus administration, put aside for those neighborhoods to use for streetscapes and road/sidewalk repairs.

It’s time to charge market rate prices when people want to store private property on public roads.

By: D.J.

D.J. — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 23:54:42 +0000

What these apartment buildings are really showing is that there is *not* as strong a demand for parking as car-centric advocates have always claimed. In the past, residential and commerical developers were *forced* to build a certain number of parking spaces, regardless of demand. The cost of these spaces was then, of course, passed along to the developers’ customers (home owners and commercial tenants). People drove a lot because they were forced to buy homes that included parking spaces and they were forced to shop at stores that provided free parking.

Portland’s codes now allow the market to decide, in certain districts, how much parking should be provided. And it turns out, developers have found that there is a lot of demand for people who don’t want all the parking that was previously forced on them.

That’s a good thing.

If you want more parking, buy home with a parking space.

By: MRB

MRB — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:51:06 +0000

If existing residence have their own off-street parking, why are they concerned?

My suspicion is that existing residents either don’t have off-street parking and are parking for free on-street (the same activity that they engage in) and are therefore complete and utter hypocrites; or they have more cars than parking spaces, in which case, preserving parking space for their second car is more important than leaving space for new resident’s only car.

Either way, it’s NIMBYism at it’s finest.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:55:24 +0000

Not only does reducing the number of trips via personal automobile help save the earth, it would save hundreds of lives in Oregon alone every year, and to the tune of 35,000 lives in the U.S. every year.

Besides that, we would lessen the fear of public spaces we have – because they could be occupied by people again. The more people around, the less crime. The fewer cars, the more comfortable people will be out in public, therefore the more people will be out in public.

Less on-street parking would also be a safety-boost to people driving – have you ever pulled up to an intersection in Portland, and you can’t see who is coming on the cross street because of the cars (or vans, or large trucks) parked around the intersection? This is a rhetorical question. Of course you have. How many times, as a result, have you almost hit someone, or almost been hit by someone? Maybe it’s even resulted in a collision.

Imagine what all that space we use to store automobiles could be otherwise? Space comes at a premium, and those parking lots could be boutiques, public services, restaurants, hardware stores, movie theaters. Not that there would be NO car parking at any of these places, some people really do need to drive – but the question to ask is, how do we most effectively move the most people to destinations within the city, and through the city. The answer is not by having them all in their own cars. You get a much bigger bang for your buck with public transit, bicycles and walking.

It’s simple practicality.

By: Brent

Brent — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:58:14 +0000

If the government got out of the business of providing on-street parking, then it could sensibly get out of the task of regulating off-street parking. However, we have developers who decide to push the costs of parking onto the taxpayer, rather than onto the renter/buyer, where it belongs. If you own a car and park it on the street to save $500 in rent, you’re a freeloader. We don’t need more freeloaders.