Olympia residential parking: A call for evidence-based decision making

To: Olympia Planning Commission

The issue of how many parking spots to allow or require in new residential projects is not simple. Having a pat answer betrays an overreliance on ideology and/or self-interest instead of an open-minded look at facts and analysis.
But without a shared foundation of facts and analysis, ideology and self-interest are all we have.

That is precisely why this policy change should be preceded by real data, studies, and analysis. That is also what the Council of Neighborhoods asked for in its resolution along with the time for the public to look at it and share their conclusions.

Itchy Twitter fingers

In this age of itchy twitter fingers, it takes a lot of effort not to react  reflexively to issues. Watching the Planning Commission meeting, where a bare quorum of the members made a sudden change without advance notice to go from a reduction to elimination off-street parking, is an example of shoot from the hip decision making. From experience, I know it takes willpower to refrain from the emotionally satisfying quick reaction and to think more fully about the issues.

What passes for normal in a Twitter oriented world should not be applied to public and community issues like this. Issues of such wide sweep as parking deserve restraint from the personally emotionally satisfying reaction to a more
community engaged dialog. The PC should be educating and informing the public about their reasoning and share it far enough in advance to hear concerns that they may not be thinking in their rush.

I find it most helpful to see where those whose opinions differ with mine regarding the desired outcome. Usually, I find that we all have good intentions and share laudable outcomes but disagree on the best way to get there. I care about housing affordability and personally supported a campaign to have Habitat lead the development of the city’s Boulevard property rather than a market rate developer. I care about the environment, deeply. And I would support your proposal for zero parking if we had a NYC or SF level of transit alternatives – subways, buses 24/7 and light rail. But we don’t and we won’t until we reach those densities, which is unlikely to happen in 100 years.

It is important for you to acknowledge your obligation to current residents whose quality-of-life concerns need to be balanced with your plan for adding the 20,000 residents who you expect to live here in the next 10-20 years.
Often it is about different assumptions of the intended and unintended consequences, especially so when a policy issue like parking requires two or three or more leaps about anticipated human and corporate behavior before the presumed result happens.

Predicting the behavior of developers (who are not all alike) and individual choices on housing preferences (definitely not all alike) and the long-term future of transportation and development practices means that you have to understand these assumptions before you can understand why someone believes what they do about this issue. Sharing your assumptions and supporting them with facts is necessary in an informed democracy and a more cohesive community.

What you see depends on where you’re standing

We also often have different lenses about the intensity of the impact, the time scale for the effect and its locus. When parking adversely affects the livability of a neighborhood of a small city it has an immediate and direct effect on those
experiencing it – an effect that is readily observable and within the lived experience of many residents. But when you see the parking issue as a small stepping stone towards saving the planet from ruin, you might react as if it is an existential threat – while even, perhaps, recognizing the indirect, long-time frame, contingent and incremental nature of the effort.

Olympians have not had this kind of robust conversation as a community. I still hope that the Planning Commission will be the forum, especially given the contentious "Missing Middle" (the legal action is still being appealed) and the
neighborhood character issue. If not, then at least the Commission would advocate for a forum for civil and constructive conversation.

Local issues still offer hope for compromise.

Most recognize that our ability to conduct a rational dialog on national issues has been rendered toxic. I hope that at the local level, where we share our day-to-day experiences and live side-by-side, we can figure out how to have the rational and civil discourse we need for a stronger, less divisive community. This parking discussion can make a good test case. Specific policy recommendations
I believe the first-round staff recommendation for parking reduction tried to strike a balance. It included a condition of applicability to transit corridors with frequent service, and that makes sense. But the Planning Commission’s version
discarded the transit requirement and dropped the reduction from the current 1.5 spaces and the .75 spaces (proposed by staff) to zero. And it did so with the predictable effect it has had.

In addition to the process points above, here are my recommendations for making changes to the parking amendments.

1. Neighborhoods need the assurance of mechanisms that protect them from adverse results. Those protections need to be implemented before approving a project and with the data and analysis you would expect from professional transportation engineers. That is just like the Planning Commission is recommending for amendment when developers are seeking approval for increasing parking (“transportation engineer licensed in the state of Washington”).
2. We need to know whether the neighborhood streets have the infrastructure to support additional parking from new development without undue harm. Some neighborhood streets are clearly inappropriate, such as those with narrow street widths, no sidewalks or off-road pathways and mailboxes where parking means not getting mail and where transit is not sufficient. Any parking reduction approach should include a process to reveal, analyze and remediate identified problems before being approved.
   
   In addition, wide boulevards and streets also present a problem. On many of our streets such as Yelm Highway and Boulevard for example, where transit is more available than in most places in Olympia, there is no place to park on the road. By default, that means residents of large-scale developments without parking will be searching for parking in the closest neighborhoods. A similar dynamic is what has happened near the Starbucks on Yelm Highway when the Starbucks parking lot is filled, the customers park on the residential street Palomino Drive.
3. The city should also not allow developers to maximize their profits by allowing them to treat available neighborhood on-street parking as an under-exploited asset. In exchange for allowing less parking they should be required to provide some social equity benefit in return. We need to achieve some modicum of social justice from this risk-benefit tradeoff. If a 50-unit apartment house indeed saves between $6,000 and $50,000 per parking space not provided (source: Gary Cooper CNA presentation 9/12/22), it is reasonable to require the developer to share in the saving.
   
   For example, with a savings in the range of $300,000 to $2,500,000 for a 50-unit market rate apartment you should only allow reduced parking minimums if 15% to 30% of the units’ rents (depending upon amount of reduced parking permitted) are set for people earning 70% or less of the area median income. This should be a permanent feature of the project, especially within the frequent transit area. In addition, the permit should require an upfront remediation requirement addressing any adverse neighborhood impacts.
4. For similar reasons, there should be reduced parking minimums for the very low and extremely low income and for non-profits providing low-income housing -- that strikes a balance between housing affordability and the interests of existing residents.
   
   Particular attention should be paid to the critical need for lower-income workers to have a vehicle in Olympia in order to travel to their jobs. Too often our lower-income working residents have multiple part-time jobs or supplement their low-wage full-time job with a second or third part-time job. Transit as it stands today cannot meet their needs. Therefore, you need to assess the needs of those in the housing you are permitting regarding the need to have easy access to a vehicle in terms of social equity and income equality.

Finally, do not let the artificial and external timing of the Commerce grant cause the Commission to shortchange this opportunity to avoid a costly and rushed decision that loses all the opportunity to have a valuable community
conversation.

Thank you for the opportunity to make comments.

Sincerely,

          ~ Larry Dzieza, Olympia

The opinions above are, of course, those of the writer and not of The JOLT. Got something you want to get off your chest? Post your comment below, or write it up and send it to us. We'll likely run it the same day we get it.