Trying to say that building roads, parking lots, and the other parts of a transportation network is "subsidization" is like trying to say that building an electronic network (i.e., Internet) and everything included in that is "subsidization". It's not because having the network available permits lots of productive endeveurs to occur which otherwise wouldn't happen with this "commons." The long and short of it is that the "subsidization" more than "pays for itself" just by being.

You (or someone you quote) compares that to subsidized housing. How does subsidized housing "pay for itself"? I think you're confusing "doing a good deed" (subsidized housing) with making an investment that helps produce wealth which benefits everyone in the end (networks ... be they transportation of data networks) and by their very being creates the wealth that allows us to be generous and "subsidize" housing to make it affordable.

by Lance on Sep 19, 2008 2:35 pm • link • report

Lance, the relevant analogy, to expand on your idea of comparing the Internet to transportation, would be the physical backbone of the internet, which is indeed highly influenced in form by government decisions. Cable, fiber optics, satellite, etc. Cell phones, all of these methods of transmission all have their roots in specific government decisions.

Building roads and parking lots is indeed a huge subsidy for driving. It has had a huge effect on our transportation networks. We can argue the merits of each kind of network, but to deny the fact that government choices have huge implications in how those networks develop and what form they take is simply naive.

by Alex B. on Sep 19, 2008 3:18 pm • link • report

Lance,

Short Answer: I would be interested to learn more from you how the current parking minimums, and greater car ownership and use in general, "pay for themselves".

Longer Answer: I don't think that your definition of a commons (a govt investment that "pays for itself") is how economists define a commons problem (e.g. what about parks?). A commons problem occurs whenever the community wants something that isn't provided by the market (e.g. clean, free parks). I'm not sure what you are referring to by the Internet as a commons - the physical Internet backbone is a network of private fiber routes and routers (with some govt-owned routes); the protocols are administered by a private association of organizations. The early Internet was subsidized, but that reflects the fact that national defense is a commons problem.

The commons problem that offstreet parking minimums address is how to provide enough parking spaces so that society can enjoy the benefits of universal car ownership. (That's what the 1958 quote in my article is meant to be evidence of; Shoup provides endless evidence of this.)

It's now 2008, and we are questioning whether those benefits are real. Your response that parking minimums pay for themselves indicates you still believe the social benefits of universal car ownership are real. Can you help me understand what those benefits are?

Ken

by Ken Archer on Sep 19, 2008 5:12 pm • link • report

The economic concept Ken is talking about is Public vs. Private goods, there's a good wikipedia page on it but I'm going to a family dinner so you can find it.

by Michael P on Sep 19, 2008 5:48 pm • link • report

@Alex "We can argue the merits of each kind of network, but to deny the fact that government choices have huge implications in how those networks develop and what form they take is simply naive."

I didn't ... What I said was that it was an investment in the "commons" by government and with our tax dollars. i.e., we tax ourselves to provide in common that which we cannot provide for ourselves individually because of the nature of the good ... e.g., roads, defense, many types of networks ... It is an investment in ourselves whereby we all benefit. It is government doing what it is supposed to be doing. I was countering the analogy that was being made with housing subsidizes which have nothing to do with providing a "commons" as in a common road for us all to use, a common defense for us all to benefit from, and common networks such as the Internet. I.e., it was a flawed analogy to try to compare the funds used for affordable housing which benefits a limited and specific subset of the population vs. those spent to build a transportion network which benefits nearly everyone (including those who don't own a car but buy their goods in a store where the goods were delivered by some means of transportation.)

by Lance on Sep 19, 2008 6:01 pm • link • report

Ken asked: "Can you help me understand what those benefits are?"

Just look around you and you'll see a country that in something like 60 years managed to increase by 100 million additional people (or a 50% increase) in size and go from something like 6 people in a 1,500 sq ft residence to an average 2,000 sq ft of residence per 1 person! (all numbers are VERY ballpark). The signs of our success due to our being a very mobile society are all around you.

I suggest you go look at societies which don't enjoy the personal mobility that only non-mass transit can provide to more fully understand what the advent of the car society has brought us. I lived overseas in one such society for over a year and I assure you you don't know what you are missing until you are missing it.

by treqker@aol.com on Sep 19, 2008 6:13 pm • link • report

Treqker - we build that infrastructure as one of the world's only superpowers, as the main owners of a corporate hierarchy that spanned billions of lives, as the masters (both domestically and in contract to other countries) of the oil industry that kept growing exponentially. We built it on gas as cheap as water and a currency that we could barely print faster than a goatherder in Nepal could bury it in his backyard to hedge against inflation. We built it in an age when a growing economy threatened surpluses, when the New Deal had created a middle class that seemed boundless, when our technology reigned supreme.

That is not our situation anymore. Our economy is facing a constellation of problems potentially bigger than the Great Depression. The world is facing oil depletion, and global Peak Oil is likely within a decade. The middle class is wilting amidst political favors bought by the rich. Our diplomatic reputation is the bully who can't win a fight, and demands backup from strangers it insults on alternating days. Climate change is something we have to tackle, simply by virtue of being a one of the countries with the biggest population along the coastline.

New Urbanism is not all abstract aesthetic judgements on the value of distinctive places; It's also one of the only ways forward for this country that will preserve in the 21st century anything like the long-term prosperity that we have enjoyed for so long by creating sprawl in the 20th. We know it can be successful because we see other countries where it has been.

We've sunk tens of trillions into burning oil in internal combustion engines, natural gas in our isolated single-family homes, and coal in our powerplants. That way doesn't have much of a future, and the lifestyle changes involved in fixing our problem are much greater than simply losing the way that the freedom of the open road makes you feel.

by Squalish on Sep 20, 2008 3:35 pm • link • report

treqker, if the consequences of the exclusive investment in cars as our public transportation infrastructure are as unassailable as you say they are, then can you please explain why so many public agencies and governments are officially embracing and encouraging International Car-Free Day today? If there are no problems with the absolute dominence of cars as transportatioin, at least in the US, then what's the big deal all about for Car-Free Day?

by Bianchi on Sep 22, 2008 10:26 am • link • report

“The truth is that the city is responding to overspill (sic) through its use of multispace market-based meters in neighborhoods.”

David, It seems that with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Perhaps this hammer works in some situations, for example when event parking might overwhelm a residential neighborhood which normally has sufficient parking for residents and visitors. But many of the District’s neighborhoods have spillover that isn’t a result of special events like the Rose Parade (parade rate in Pasadena municipal garage is $28) or baseball games, but have spillover because there are large number of residents, many of whom own vehicles, who already live in houses and apartment buildings that don’t have sufficient parking to meet the needs of the residents. By and large, these aren’t residents that bought cars frivolously, but who need private vehicles since public transportation does not serve to meet many of their needs. Market-based meters do nothing to address this problem. There is one tool that addresses that issue: that is to at least make certain that new construction in and near the neighborhood has sufficient on-site parking, so as not to make a bad situation worse. The District’s minimum parking requirements, as low as one space for every four apartments, don’t assure sufficient on-site parking for the residents’ needs, but at least set a floor on the impact that the new building will have on the neighborhood. But, since you have a hammer (“performance parking”) and want to use it, you not only see the issue as a nail, which it isn’t, but also want to throw out the tool that is actually relevant.

by JR on Sep 22, 2008 4:20 pm • link • report

JR,

Thanks for comment. Did you know that Performance Parking actually sets the meter rate based on market demand such that 10% of spaces on each block are always available? And, of course, local residents never pay a penny. If this existed in Georgetown where I live, and which is like the neighborhoods you describe, then I would no longer have to drive around the block looking for a spot most evenings. Doesn't that address overspill?

Ken

by Ken Archer on Sep 22, 2008 5:14 pm • link • report

"And, of course, local residents never pay a penny."

My post is referring to the many District neighborhoods where there is currently a shortage of parking, with nearly all or all the spaces taken by the local residents that you say will never pay a penny. They live in the neighborhood or in apartment buildings nearby which don't offer enough on-site parking and they have the appropriate parking permit. You can fill those streets with costly meters, but if you are exempting the residents with permits, whose on-street parking needs exceed the on-stret space available--even with all off-street spaces used, those meters won't address the problem. Adding more apartment buildings near these neighborhoods with insufficient on-site parking only makes the situation worse.

Your "solution" simply doesn't address spillover problems for many of the District's neighborhoods.

by JR on Sep 22, 2008 5:37 pm • link • report

JR,

Your concern is overspill from multi-dwelling units (apartments and condos). In Georgetown, for what it's worth, MDU developers build, like, 2-3 times the minimum parking spaces, so eliminating parking minimums won't affect us at all. To be honest, JR, I think this is where we fundamentally part paths: I believe developers will continue to respond to market conditions (just like they are in Georgetown) and if they believe tenants will demand parking, developers will build it.

Not only that, I believe I've got the empirical evidence on my side too, given that every single GTown MDU has way more than minimum parking and the Highland Park apartments in Columbia Heights close to a metro stop built the minimum number of parking spaces and has only 10% occupancy of those spaces. If you can point to one single MDU in DC where the developer built the minimum required parking spaces, and they are ALL occupied by and paid for separately by residents of that building (e.g. not included in the rent/mortgage and not loaned to nearby businesses), then your position would become more credible, IMHO.

Ken

by Ken Archer on Sep 23, 2008 8:06 pm • link • report

Thank you for your response. I am somewhat confused by your comment. It seems as though your policy recommendations for the entire District based on your observations about the amount of parking provided in a few luxury condominiums in Georgetown and an assumption that market forces will handle any potential problems. You might find it interesting some night to explore single family neighborhoods that are near other District corridors with apartments and condominiums. As you drive around those streets, you can see whether residents of those apartment buildings might be parking on neighborhood streets. I think that you will discover that many of the neighborhood streets near our major high-density residential corridors are filled with parked cars, far more cars than can be explained by the single-family homes on those streets. Perhaps an evening ride through the single family neighborhoods east and west Connecticut Avenue from Calvert Street to Western Avenue would be useful.

You seem to be saying that, with or without minimum parking requirements, parking spillover simply won’t happen since the developers will “respond to market conditions.” You assume that market conditions will provide the developer with the incentive to provide sufficient parking to meet the needs of the residents of the building and their guests. You state “if they believe tenants will demand parking, developers will build it.” But, there seems to be a missing piece. Since tenants can avoid paying for off-street parking by parking on the neighborhood streets, reliance on market conditions will not address our spillover concerns. It seems that purchasers of condominiums are more likely than tenants of apartments to purchase/lease parking spaces to match their needs. But for many developments, residents are more than willing to save money by skipping the off-street parking, getting an RPP, and walking several blocks into the nearby neighborhood when they use their car on the weekends. Developers responding to market conditions take that into account when they decide how much parking to provide. The result is spillover. And that spillover will affect the quality of life in the nearby neighborhoods.

Your “solution” is to place expensive multi-space meters at which local residents can park for free on low-density residential streets. This will not change the “market conditions” to which the developer responds, since the apartment residents are local residents and the residents that parked on the street without the multi-space meters will still find on-street parking attractive, perhaps even more attractive.

I also have trouble understanding what you are trying to say about the Highland Park apartments in Columbia Heights. The Highland Park project has 229 apartments and 22,000 square feet of retail space and parking for 277 vehicles which serves both the apartments (residents, visitors and employees) and the retail space. It is not clear whether any of this parking is intended to also serve future phases of this project, but the parking level did include a knock-out wall for access to the next stage. You stated that the developer built the minimum required parking spaces. But in a C-3-A zone, the required parking for the residential portion of the building would be 115 spaces for 229 units, not 277 spaces. Perhaps you were misled by the Office of Planning’s statement, which you repeated in your July 31 testimony, that the minimum parking requirement in DC is one space per unit. It is not. It ranges from 1 space per four units to one space per two units for MDUs. In this instance it is one space for every two units, half what the Office of Planning wrote in their report.

More importantly, the observation about that nine spaces were “sold” provides no information about the number of vehicles that the residents of those apartments actually own. David’s earlier post stated that there were 90 apartments leased and only 9 spaces had been purchased, but did not say whether those 90 apartments might account of 36 more vehicles that will be parked on the street.

As I noted earlier, minimum parking requirements do not solve the spillover problem, but they are one tool that places a floor on how much spillover parking will result from each project.

by JR on Sep 24, 2008 4:20 pm • link • report

JR, there are other ways to manage spillover other than with multispace meters, which as you noted are expensive (around $10,000 each), and not really appropriate for resident parking.

For example, Arlington does not allow multifamily building residents to obtain resident parking permits, if the building was developed under a site plan. Site plans typically give the developer more density, height or FAR in exchange for community amenity contributions, build-to lines, architectural changes, etc. They also usually restrict the amount of parking that can be built. This seems to work. The block faces for a lot of multifamily buildings in Arlington are street-level retail with meters, and the surrounding areas are resident permit zones. Car ownership rates in these buildings are lower than typical for equivalent incomes elsewhere.

An alternative to prohibiting multifamily building tenants from obtaining RPP stickers would be for the single family home residents to be allowed one RPP permit at a nominal charge ($20 a year or whatever the rate is today), but have additional permits at a much higher fee. Building residents would only be allowed to buy RPP permits at the higher second permit fee. The second permit fee would be on the same order of magnitude as leaseable off-street parking, to prevent multifamily building residents from "gaming the system" as you describe.

It's extremely important that the additional revenue raised in this manner be dedicated to local streetscape improvements. You're much more likely to obtain political buy-in if people see a direct benefit from the fees.

I think it goes without saying that either the total number of allowable permits or the price of the "last permit" needs to be administratively adjustable in order to balance demand with available street space. If DC finds that the streets are too full, they can either prohibit obtaining a fourth or fifth pass (or third pass, depending on what the maximum number ends up being), or they can charge a very high price for passes beyond a certain number. For areas where the streets are generally empty, the restriction or price could be reduced.

Arlington's residential permit parking system is better designed and works better than DC's. The zones are smaller (no larger than 1/2 mile in diameter) to prevent people from commuting within their zone, and are tied to specific parking generators (high schools, metro stations, retail corridors).

http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/EnvironmentalServices/dot/traffic/parking/EnvironmentalServicesZone.aspx

by Michael P on Sep 24, 2008 9:53 pm • link • report

Michael, In your description of Arlington, you write: “They also usually restrict the amount of parking that can be built.” Have you checked the Arlington zoning regulations? In fact, Arlington has a minimum parking requirement of more one space per housing unit or more, even at sites near the Metro, except where it might be allowed by a site plan. The minimum parking requirement also includes spaces for off-street guest parking.

Your suggestions about changes in the size of the RPP zones or prohibiting residents of apartment buildings or condominiums might reduce the impact of spillover on single family neighborhoods. However, similar proposals have been made many times in DC in the past and rejected. Perhaps you might work toward implementing RPP zones no more than 1/2 mile in diameter, tied to specific parking generators, and prohibiting all MDU residents from obtaining RPPs. But we cannot eliminate minimum parking requirements on the assumption that we will successfully implement alternate policies that have consistently been rejected in the past.

First, let’s implement an on-street parking policy that works, and only then we can determine whether it is appropriate to make incremental changes in the parking requirements.

by JR on Sep 25, 2008 8:06 am • link • report

JR, you make good points. I'll have to check into the minimums near metro, I thought they were reduced or turned into maximums.

If DC doesn't want to make changes to the RPP program, which operates largely the same way it did back in the 1970s, then that's up to them. I was just offering suggestions of what works in Arlington.

By maintaining minimum parking requirements, you're reducing the number of units that can be built, which ultimately reduces property tax revenue, income tax revenue, sales tax revenue, and hurts the District. The people who benefit are the minority that own and park cars for free on the District's streets.

by Michael P on Sep 25, 2008 9:22 am • link • report

JR, I don't see how the scenario you describe, where the condo/apt dweller skips the in-house garage in favor of the street, has any effect on parking minimums. There will always be people who wnat off-street parking and be willing to pay for it-yes? If that assumption is met then builders will presumably accomodate that assumption and build parking in new buildings whether there are minimums in place or not. I have a condo in the exact place you describe (off Connecticut near the zoo). My bldg was built in 1933. There is no off street pkg. Most of the neighborhood is townhouses with alley access with off street pkg. The greatest challenges to on-street pkg in my neighborhood are generated from zoo vistors and events at the Swiss embassy, the Maret Sch. and the Wash Intern'l sch. I would love to see performance parking in my neighborhood. The zoo visitors are the worst. They litter, create traffic jams on tiny side streets and park illegally. Enforcement would be welcome too. One day last summer there were 15 cars, all with MD or VA plates, parked illegally in front of my building on a side of the street that is no pkg for its length. Several neighbors and I called the 2nd distrct police, who are just a few blocks away. Yet no police ever showed up to issue a ticket. Zoo visitors are a nuisance in my neighborhood. Performace parking would help control these pests. Required minimums are useless to this problem in this neighborhood that was developed before WWII. The only thing the minimums have done is force the few newer houses with no alley to put in curb-cuts. The curb-cuts are are nuissance all on their own.

by Bianchi on Sep 25, 2008 10:14 am • link • report

Michael, The section on reductions in parking for uses near Metro and the administrative provisions begins at the bottom of page 5 of the relevant section of Arlington’s regulations. You will see that they are quite limited, and that there are reductions for restaurants that operate at certain hours, certain small retail and service uses and certain grocery stores, with only nominal reductions for each of these. As you mentioned, the parking requirements can be changed in developments which involve a site plan application.

Arlington’s parking requirement for “dwellings, other than one- and two-family” is “One and one-eighth (1 1/8) spaces for each of the first two hundred (200) dwelling units in any structure and one (1) space for each additional dwelling unit.” The required parking for one- and two-family dwelling ranges from one space per unit to 2.2 spaces per unit.

I do think that some of your suggestions for changes to DC’s RPP program would help. Unfortunately, they have been rejected in the past, and DDOT seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

Michael, I haven’t seen any studies applicable to the District that show that parking minimums reduce the amount of housing units. The only studies I have seen assume that parking minimums will be accommodated with surface parking lots, reducing the land available for housing on the site, or that it will be above grade structured parking reducing the FAR available for other uses. Neither of these assumptions apply to DC’s high density residential development. Have you seen other studies that show that minimum parking requirements of 0.25 to .5 spaces per unit reduce the amount of housing provided in high density residential developments?

Bianchi, Minimum parking requirements are not meant to address the parking issues that you raise. One reason that I suggested that Ken check neighborhoods like yours at night was so that he could observe the cars owned by the residents of the neighborhood, and not, for example, zoo-goers. My comments about residents who choose not to purchase off-street parking was meant to call into question Ken’s basic assumption that market forces will lead the developer to provide sufficient off-street parking to eliminate parking spillover. When residents choose not to pay for off-street parking, these market forces do not eliminate spillover parking as Ken claims.

by JR on Sep 25, 2008 2:42 pm • link • report

RJ, The nighttime on-street pkg in my neighborhood would be alleiviated if spaces were used only by residents. This is not the case, especially when the institutions named above have events- which are always in the evening. The zoo visitors are mainly a problem on the weekends, but the zoo has weekday evening events too. There is also restaurant/club parking in my neighborhood, again, in the evening. I live there. I know. Again, if only residents were using those spots at night there were not be as much competition for them. But this is not the case. Many visitors use the streets to park in the evenings because the 2 hr. limit is not in effect. Why don't you come see what it's like? Also, the current minimums have required a few newer houses in the neighborhood without alley access to make curb-cuts, which, as I said above, are a nuissance of their own kind.

by Bianchi on Sep 25, 2008 3:24 pm • link • report

RJ: You mentioned that DC has tried to implement RPP program changes in the past. During any of those tries was the RPP revenue ever offered back to the specific neighborhood where it was raised? I'm not talking about Ward-level return, but block-level or groups of blocks.

by Michael P on Sep 26, 2008 6:54 am • link • report

Michael, Two of the major provisions that Arlington has, 22 small RPP zones which reduce the use of RPPs for cross-zone commuting and making residents of apartment buildings and condominiums ineligible for RPPs, would produce no revenue, so there is no issue of investing the revenue in the specific neighborhood. I think that prohibiting residents of apartment buildings and condominiums from getting permits works in Arlington in part because most existing buildings have on-site parking and new buildings are required to have sufficient on-site parking. I don’t think DC tried to implement these changes, but they were discussed and quickly dismissed. I don’t know if a prohibition of parking within the RPP zones without a permit even for under two hours (which would address Bianchi’s bar patron and zoo-goer problems) was ever seriously discussed. You recognize that expensive multi-space meters are inappropriate for residential streets, and they would raise no revenue anyway since the proposals would exempt the local residents from payment.

Your other suggestion to charge high fees for permits to residents whose neighborhoods are subject to excessive amounts of spillover parking seems to be punishing the victims of the developers who choose to construct buildings near their neighborhood with insufficient parking. I don’t think that is the appropriate way to deal with this externality. At any rate, I can’t speak for DC neighborhoods as a whole, but I suspect that most low-density residential DC neighborhoods don’t need the type of streetscape improvements you are referring to: Homeowners maintain their own yards including the public space and treebox areas. Revenue-generating performance parking is meant to deal with parking turnover in commercial districts and municipal lots. Spillover parking in low-density residential neighborhoods near high density residential development is a very different type of problem.

by JR on Sep 26, 2008 8:10 am • link • report

JR: To be fair, my suggestion was to charge high fees only for additional vehicles past the first two, or one, in zones where the streets are clogged and people generally have trouble finding parking.

I wouldn't be on board with a plan to charge high fees where parking is generally available.

Nor do I think it is necessary or politically feasible to charge a high fee for the first or possibly second parking permit, especially for owners of homes that were built before off-street parking became a requirement.

You mentioned that minimums don't cause a reduction in available housing, because the minimums are so low. There are two possibilities with minimums:

1. They don't do anything because building developers build more parking than required.

2. They force builders to build more parking than they would otherwise. This forces the cost of building each unit up, either by causing more underground levels, more above-ground levels or more surface parking. This effect either reduces the number of units built (because of reduced available building area or prohibitive building costs or height restrictions) or makes a marginal project unprofitable and therefore it doesn't get built. Either way, the number of available units decreases. This decrease in units harms the city economically as mentioned above.

We may be speaking from different points of view, which is why we're both able to argue rationally. I believe your point of view is that homeowners should have street parking available to them at low cost because that's what has happened in the past, and any imposition of additional demand on them harms them. It's a fair point.

by Michael P on Sep 26, 2008 9:24 am • link • report

“To be fair, my suggestion was to charge high fees only for additional vehicles past the first two, or one, in zones where the streets are clogged and people generally have trouble finding parking.”

Michael, Since is it unlikely that DC will be shrinking the size of the zones to eliminate within-zone commuting or that DC will be eliminating the ability of residents of apartments and condominiums to get RPPs, a policy of charging high fees for residential parking permits that would apply only to the households with three or more vehicles, or even two or more vehicles would be unlikely to have much of an impact on the neighborhoods where the streets are clogged with parked cars. Residents of the nearby apartment buildings (who would get at a nominal cost least one permit per unit valid in the nearby low-density neighborhoods, and there are active proposals that they also get free guest parking permits) are a major source of over-night crowding. Within-zone commuters and people who park in the neighborhood for two-hour errands are a major source of daytime crowding. Your suggestion is a solution that addresses a suburban issue, not a DC issue. In DC, there are some households with three or more vehicles, but that isn’t the source of parking spillover. As I said earlier, Arlington has been able to implement policies that deny RPPs to apartment and condo residents and that eliminate within-zone commuting since they have adequate parking in existing development and require adequate parking in new development. This is based on having had and maintaining minimum parking requirements that are as much as four times DC’s minimum parking requirements.

Michael, my statement about the lack of studies showing that minimum parking requirements in a jurisdiction like DC cause a reduction in housing was not related to the fact that DC’s minimum requirement is so low, but mainly related to the fact that the basis for the claim that minimums reduce the supply of housing doesn’t apply to projects like high-density residential development in the District. You listed the standard arguments and that logic is based on housing-types typically found in the suburbs. I agree that for some buildings, the developers are not constrained by minimum parking requirements. For those buildings, the minimums have no impact and the developers will build the amount of parking that they find desirable, unless, as David advocates, the proposed maximum parking limit is imposed and they are not permitted to provide the parking that they believe their project should have.

For your second case, I should first point out that in DC, the provision of underground parking has no impact on the amount of development that is allowed on a site since the regulations only limit the floor area above grade. Similarly, it would not change the height limit for the building. While some suburban projects provide parking in above grade structures, which would result in a decrease in the floor area available to the developer for housing, that is rarely done for high-density residential housing in the District. Similarly, the impact of surface parking on the land available is not an issue for high-density residential housing in the District.

This leaves your final concern, that by requiring the developer to provide even a fraction of the parking necessary to accommodate the residents and employees of the building, the developer can no longer shift the cost of parking for his building to the nearby neighborhood residents. In your theory, without shifting the costs to the neighborhood residents, the developer finds the building would be unprofitable, and the result is a reduction in the amount of housing supplied. It seems that if the only way a building can be profitable is to shift some of its costs to others, perhaps the land was priced inappropriately high, based on the assumption that costs can be shifted to others, or perhaps that developer should not be constructing that building at that location. Perhaps another developer could find a profitable project for that location which does not involve shifting the developer’s costs to others.

I think that your arguments are valid with certain assumptions, but those assumptions simply don’t apply to the District, and I haven’t seen any studies relevant to the District that reach these conclusions.

by JR on Sep 28, 2008 10:40 pm • link • report