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ChineseHot Real Estate Deal in Manhattan
At any rate. The New York Times reports a great real estate deal in NYC: Look what you can get for merely $225,000:
All of this talk about transit-oriented development and NIMBY obstructionists and everything else, and at the end of the day, this article explains why what should be patently obvious to basically everyone in the Western Hemisphere: LA is not New York.
We have two separate issues, which often mistakenly get conflated into one.
1) Driving is not yet inconvenient enough for people.
2) Transit is seen as unbecoming or below people’s stations.
I’m from the Northeast. #2 is incomprehensible to me and has been frequently addressed by other posters, so I’m not going to belabor the point.
The simple reality is that perfectly well-meaning and otherwise logical people continue to drive in LA because they’re just not in enough pain. Most major cities with high transit usage have parking nightmares. The NYT reports that a parking space in my most recent home, Boston, goes for $175k. But here, because residential parking is so plentiful, we just haven’t felt it yet. This is largely due to the fact that, as I understand it (I haven’t exactly read the municipal code here), LA continues to require more than ample parking as a component of all development. In NYC, and especially Manhattan, subterranean space is at a premium, due to all of the century-old subway lines as well as the utilities which the city, quite frankly, can’t really develop a useful map of due to the fact that all of this stuff was done by private companies before the City assumed it (the NYC Subway was originally a private venture - the system is so large due to early 20th century competition between multiple companies). Sorry, I’m a history geek. 
Here, parking is obnoxious, annoying, slow at retail sites, but at the end of the day, still inexpensive. I attend a Korean class at the Korean Cultural Center in the Miracle Mile (highly recommended for any fellow K-Town dwellers (/shameless plug) ). I am always highly amused to slip out of the lot between cars parked “apron” style as people wait for cars to be moved so that they can get out and back home (highly illegal and never done back East, I was astonished to see this practice in LA, let alone learn that it had a name). It’s inconvenient, it’s slow, but it’s free. I could reserve a spot in my K-town building for a ridiculously low price, and I’ve considered it more than once, simply to give friends a place to park. I’m all but legally blind, I’ll never drive ;p. But it’s just so cheap that, despite being car-free, I feel guilty about not having convenient parking for people who come to my apartment.
Want to see serious changes in LA? The single biggest thing the City and County can do isn’t to ram the Wilshire subway through Beverly Hills or ram Expo through Cheviot Hills (though both are important goals); it’s to abolish free parking and stop forcing new construction to have more parking spaces than residents. Sure, things still need parking, let’s not level the Grove’s garage here, LA isn’t New York, never was New York, never will be New York. But right now the City and County are continuing to encourage the behavior that they ostensibly want to discourage: driving short distances within urbanized areas.
When a parking space sells for $225,000, THEN people will suddenly discover transit in LA. But until then, even the Subway Mayor is complicit in this. We can talk about double-stacking freeways and turning Pico and Olympic into speedways until we’re blue in the face, people will still drive so long as parking is free.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Bravo Aaron. And it’s going to have to start costing. Parking can’t be free forever… especially with the report of the increased population in the next 5o years. If we keep providing ample parking for each new person, all of Los Angeles will be nothing but a parking lot. I worry though that such an obvious vision of the future escapes many short-sighted Angelenos and politicians with their visions of double-decker freeways and one-way speedways. If 3.5 million more people are going to arrive in an area where a car is a required, then there’s going to have to be 3.5 million more parking spaces. Is that really how you want to use our limited space?
We need to continue to convince people (and the city needs to continue expanding it’s mass transit infrastructure) that a car in Los Angeles is not only not a necessity, it’s a burden. If not you all are going to have 3.5 million new cars joining you on your paltry double-decker freeway and competing for your double-stacked parking spaces.
We are starting to see the effect of required parking driving up the cost of housing. It is almost impossible to purchase a home for less than $400,000 anywhere in LA, except for downtown where adaptive reuse buildings have been renovated with relaxed parking (some with absolutely no parking).
The private market will have to pick up the slack, with for profit garages. Soon you will see the cost of parking increase, it is already happening, but it is folded into the cost of housing, so it’s not so obvious.
I lived in NYC in the early 80s when the first parking spots were selling for $20,000, and people were shocked. Believe it or not, lots of people owned cars in Manhattan then, and still do, and many were able to park on the streets (with constant vigilance to the shifting legalities by moving their cars every other day).
I’ve seen the cost of parking downtown rise from $75 per month to about $150 for the new residents. Many are letting go of their cars. It is stating to happen here. But we have a long way to go.
Does a parking spot count as real property protected under Prop 13? Are we losing major property taxes over this?
Fred: Thanks :). I actually tend to think that this will start to be solved by market forces… parking is so plentiful that running a parking garage isn’t going to be profitable compared to redeveloping into retail or housing, and the price will finally start to go up. Assuming that Council doesn’t continue to be complicit in this and lets it happen rather than continuing to artificially subsidize parking (at, of course, the cost of all tax-paying Angelinos). Basically what Bert said.
Raphael: My presumption is that parking spaces are already covered as part of the structure being taxed (e.g. a garage, or as part of the house since it’s part of the real estate).
Street parking is also dealt with much differently in other cities. New York has alternate-side parking, which Bert alluded to, which makes street-parking a serious pain in the ass, along with the time limitations. Boston restricts a lot of side-street parking to resident permits, which is another way to control street parking. Both of which is probably as foreign to LA as apron parking was to me, but will be the way things go, at least in the urbanized parts of LA.
We need New York’s “Alternate side parking” and Mexico City’s “Hoy no circula”!!!
Many streets in L.A. have alternate side parking which IS a serious pain in the ass. And it works at getting some to go car-free. At least it worked for me! Where I used to live in Hollywood, street parking was limited, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays there was alternate-side parking rules for street cleaning… so on those days the already limited parking was effectively halved. If you came home in a car any time after 6pm you were effectively screwed and would either have to spend a long time circling around (somtimes up to an hour) or give up and park your car far away. If you didn’t move your car it was something like a $65 ticket. A man can only take so much of this before he decides that having a car in such an environment is idiotic.
Regarding that article, how sick is it that a parking space is worth as much to people as a living space.
Fred: Parking in Manhattan below 96th St is ridiculously insane, and believe it or not, housing (especially rent) in NYC and Boston is noticeably more expensive than LA. The last straw on my move from Boston was the realization that I’d do noticeably better in housing costs in LA than I would in Boston. So the price, while ridiculous by LA standards, eh, starts to make sense.
There’s a lot of people who live in Manhattan, and there’s a pretty decent number who do need cars; doctors, social workers, etc., basically anyone who may need to pick up and haul off to the Bronx at 3am on short notice ;p. The major subway lines may still run, though not all of them, and not with the frequency and speed required in an emergency (no express lines run between 12 and 5am). This may be the I (heart) NY in me talking, but my feeling is that there’s not too many people in Manhattan who have cars who shouldn’t. Often the cars aren’t used to commute, but for instead weekends or other travel. So unlike LA, the numbers of folks who have cars due to legitimate need is fairly reasonable. It’s just tempered by the fact that there’s 1.5m people in only 23sq/m of space (a lot of that space being above 96th St or part of Central Park or Inwood Hill).
LA’s population density: 8k/mi^2.
Manhattan’s population density: 67k/mi^2.
And that includes Central Park and Inwood Hill, not just the populated districts.
According to Wikipedia, via the 2001 National Household Travel Survey, and other sources, about 75% of NYC residents do not own a car. Compare that to 8% for the rest of the country and 12.5% for Los Angeles (source). Surely it’s in a league of it’s own, but I think it’s a league that Los Angeles, due to it’s population and density (although the city itself is nowhere near as dense as New York City, the urban area is actually the densest in the U.S., and it’s only getting denser), should be headed towards.
Less people driving = less people being affected by traffic congestion
(note I didn’t say less traffic congestion)
While I’m sure NYC’s auto traffic and parking situation sucks, it’s pretty much irrelevant to 6.2 million of its residents because they don’t have to deal with it.
If 75% of Angelenos didn’t own cars, that would mean that instead of 3.3 million cars (just from those living within the city limits) on the streets there would be 950,000 cars. Auto traffic wouldn’t be so bad then. 2.85 million less cars would probably improve air quality quite a bit.
The solution to L.A.’s traffic and pollution problems isn’t to accommodate more cars it’s to get more people out of there cars. All planning, development, and policy should move forward with that in mind. It will require things like increased mass transit infrastructure, denser neighborhoods, mixed-use zoning, and improved pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure. And making car ownership in the city hell! Los Angeles isn’t a quaint little town, hasn’t been for quite some time now, those looking for small town charms best move to a small town!
People should be getting tax breaks for lower levels of commuting. There should be a tax of $100 per mile away you live from your work. You commute every day from Lancaster or Victorville, 100 miles each way? Then you pay $10,000 per year in taxes. You work in Century City and live three miles away, off La Cienega Blvd.? Then you pay $300 a year in taxes. You’ll see people thinking twice about living in Palmdale or Temecula. And the tax people know where you live and where you work, so they can easily figure out what you owe.
Scott, I like that idea. And the taxes can go towards more public transportation. However, it should apply to people making $50,000+/year and who live more than 10-15 miles from their job. I hate meeting rich executive bozos who live in a ridiculously huge house in Riverside, but work in West L.A.
I like how my car insurance payments PLUMMETED after I told Progressive that I only drive my car when I’m in Covina (where my family and little Corolla reside). I now pay only $30 instead of $60. I can’t wait for the day when I won’t need to pay anything because I’ll have ditched my vehicle for good.
Cute idea, but wholly unconstitutional: the right to travel is a fundamental right. Tolls are narrowly tailored enough to escape that scrutiny (and at any rate are probably treated as economic regulation and thus subject to lower scrutiny anyhow), but a straight tax would probably flunk Constitutional scrutiny.
If only we had a bunch of rivers, we could do what NY does and make people pay at many of the river crossings ;p. NY is getting congestion tolls soon a la London, and we should do the same, but it’ll be harder to do here because there’s no clean line between the urban area and everything else (let’s revive the age old La Ciénega/Fairfax/La Brea fight!). But increasing the cost of parking would have the same effect, it would just take longer due to the fact that right now, supply pretty thoroughly exceeds demand.
I like Scott’s idea as well. But I think it shouldn’t be a tax but a tax break for those who choose alternative modes of transportation or choose to live in transit oriented developments without a car. That way people will have an incentive to choose a car-free lifestyle and live closer to their jobs. It’s a win-win, those who choose to go car-free get a tax break, those who don’t miss out on the tax break but get less traffic. Plus, if many of the comments on CurbedLA are to be taken seriously, living in an urban area without a backyard and garage is hell on earth, we deserve a tax break for making such a sacrifice for the greater good!
This is just me, but I cringe every time I see calls for “tax breaks” or any sort of deliberately political gaming of revenues and expenses.
Any revenue collected by government is a tax. Licenses, fees, fines and permits all have an aspect of contract and an aspect of tribute.
What interest is it in the government to forego revenue in hopes of encouraging some kind of economic decision? It only makes sense as a “loss leader,” where the loss of revenue can be backfilled through an alternative source.
Think of Proposition 13. It’s the greatest thing to have ever happened to homeowners. Consequently, it also is responsible for making California one of the most business-unfriendly states in the country. Anti-tax groups behind Proposition 13 wanted to “starve the beast” but didn’t correspondingly create a mandate to reduce government. Hence, local governments created a revenue-neutral financing model by backfilling lost coffers through sales taxes. The business climate is tilted in favor of businesses that can provide heavy sales tax revenues, i.e. big-box stores. They can sell volumes and operate at margins that smaller businesses cannot match.
Alas, a comparable model does not exist for transportation. Providers of transportation, be it guideways or vehicles, do not have the same economic incentives as merchants. Transportation providers have a disincentive to add capacity, as diminishing returns are more pronounced, and it is far easier and more economically optimal to destroy demand through high prices than to create supply.
Having said that, maybe the best way to finance transportation is just to charge a tax on drivers based on how much they actually drive. Just remove gas taxes and make the mileage fee revenue-neutral and go from there. And to placate the right wing, call this tax an impact fee. It’s a tax in that the piper still gets paid, but it’s an impact fee since the costs are based on actual consumption of road space.
You hit the nail on this article. The biggest problem we have is parking garages. It causes traffic, smog, and reduces the incentive for people to take public transportation. Parking is so plentiful in LA, why should I take transit? I live in dt and I HATE seeing these 10 - 15 story parking garages taking precious space. They do not add anything to a vibrant urban core. Look at the ridiculously huge garage under 1100 Wilshire…is that sexy? A lot of businesses moved out of LA b/c the # 1 complaint by employees was parking. Thus, we’ve developed the Santa Claritas, Burbanks, Cerritos, etc… business centers that have “free parking”. LA needs to cut down on parking requirements, increase funding for transit. I would love to see a streetcar circular in downtown (imagine going from South Park to the Historic Core or Arts District, etc…). Parking is the #1 reason people drive. If we make that inconvenient, then mass transit becomes a fantastic option.
LA will always be that way, LAofAnaheim, at least in regards to multiple commercial centers. It seems to be a permanent thing, and I think if we deal with it appropriately, it’ll be one of LA’s strengths.
Now that DTLA is actually attractive, rather than before, my guess is that the garages will up prices until they no longer can become profitable. I’m not usually a fan of pure market economies, but my guess is that this one will work to run out the garages. You don’t see too many parking garages being built in NYC; you can use the space for more profitable things.
With more employees living Downtown and with formerly unattractive neighborhoods becoming trendy (Hollywood, K-Town, the Northeast LA communities), more people will live nearby. It’s definitely coming.
The streetcar idea is interesting but I worry it’s not the best use of funds. I’d rather see the Blue line looped up to 1st/Fig or 2nd/Fig, turn it east into Union Station and terminate it there. It’d connect the part of DTLA with a lack of rail access as well as finally fixing the Gold/Blue/Metrolink issues. Union Station is big enough to handle the additional traffic that would be generated. I’m not a fan of the Little Tokyo idea for the Blue Line, I think 1st/Fig would solve more problems, and I worry that streetcars wouldn’t attract the ridership that DASH can because of its many flexible routes.
I think your point about parking is very well taken. But I think you should shift your attention from residential parking to commercial parking. Cars don’t contribute to traffic or smog when they’re parked in front of their owner’s houses. It’s businesses that expect/require employees and customers to drive to them that cause trouble.
So I think there ought to be a hefty tax on commercial parking places. If businesses set up shop somewhere that can only be reached by car, they ought to pay for the load they’re placing on the freeway system. If businesses locate in places that people can get to by transit, they deserve to save some money in exchange for saving the public some money, and in exchange for no doubt having to pay for more expensive real estate.
Btw I just discovered this blog–I both like it and feel a bit like I’ve wandered into a parallel universe, since I’ve been writing (cf 295bus.blogspot.com) about pretty much the same issues in the bay area (where transit riders put up with the same s–t from different a–s).
Hey Nick, thanks for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoy the blog. I checked out your site, keep up the good work up north!