An Unusual Objection to Less Parking: It Will Make Our City Too Nice

The college town of Champaign, Illinois recently debated against a relaxed parking requirement for residential development. From a planner and developer perspective, reducing the parking requirement is about lowering development costs, reducing auto dependence, and improving the attractiveness of the community. From the university's perspective, the idle lots being suddenly viable for development poses development competition where they seek to buy lots on the cheap for future expansion. ultimately, the city didn’t change anything in response to the university’s objection, (adding, “we are hoping to work more closely with them in the future”).

Some thoughts from this article:

The argument against the policy, in this case, is actually a powerful one in its favor. The University understands the benefit of parking and acknowledge that their primary reason for objection is to preserve cheap land for future university development.  

It is interesting that when the city has reduced parking requirements in the past, the development community has made instant use of the changes.  This is an indication that developers were very eager to be relieved of this huge cost burden on them.  Given the receptivity of the developers it is no wonder why the university objects the proposal.

The interest of the university is a lot of times at odds with the city.  Universities are also businesses that bring a lot of income to the city.  Keeping the university happy should be a priority for city planners only up to a certain extent. Planners also need to consider housing and offering services to the city’s residents outside of the university community- i.e. low-income residents. When large institutions are bullies planners can leverage certain policies such as reduced parking requirement to have greater negotiating power.

Your thoughts?

Link: http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/09/an-unusual-objection-to-less-parking-it-will-make-our-city-too-nice/406096/?utm_source=SFTwitter