QUEENS, NY — A decades-old city mandate requiring housing developers build parking spaces regardless of need could be abolished this fall, if City Hall plays ball with advocates who call the policy “insane.”
A powerful transit advocacy group began lobbying this month to abolish the JFK-era policy of building off-street parking spaces with new housing projects ahead of a zoning text amendment process likely to start this fall.
Open Plans co-executive director Sara Lind told Patch, “In a housing crisis, this is just insane policy.”
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The group argues parking increases housing costs and claims space for cars that could be homes for people.
A single parking space takes the place of roughly one unit of housing, an Open Plans study found.
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And the parking mandate increases building costs by an estimated $150,000 per space, an increase the group says ultimately ends up on tenants’ rent bills.
Posters that have begun popping up in Astoria come with messages such as “Parking mandates raise your rent by 17%” and “Parking mandates force you to pay for your neighbor’s parking spot.”
Mayor Eric Adams signaled in his City of Yes proposal unveiled in June 2022 that city officials would push to “reduce unnecessary parking requirements,” but didn’t specify how far they’d go.
Lind says the zoning text amendment — a lengthy process that only occurs about once a decade —represents New York City’s best chance to change the city’s parking minimum requirement.
“It hasn’t been changed since literally the JFK administration,” Lind said.
If successful, the change could enter the city’s uniform land use review procedure by spring.
And New York would not be the first city in the state to lift the mandate.
Buffalo did so in 2017 and soon nearly half of major developments decrease parking space provided, according to an Open Plan study released earlier this year.
Lind acknowledged Queens residents are often more dependent on cars than people who live in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but argued affordable housing should come first.
“We’re leaving housing on the table when we separately need it,” Lind said. “And that’s truth in Queens as anywhere else in the city.”
Lind stressed that abolishing the mandate doesn’t mean developers won’t build parking spaces. If there’s a genuine need, they’ll still build them, she said.
“It’s not like we’re banning parking,” Lind said. “We’re not getting rid of existing parking space and developers can still build them.”
What lifting the mandates will do is potentially stop situations such as at West 125th Street and Broadway, where a new development — with parking — next to a subway station, Lind said. The spot is one place where the Open Plans posters went up, she said.
Lind said fully eliminating parking mandates could be “legacy building” for Adams.
“If New York City comes out with full elimination, this would be national news,” she said. “The administration would be lauded for this.”
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