Category Archives: Economy

Automobile-Centric Development and Parking Requirements

#yeg, Development, Economy, Edmonton, Innovation

Cross posted – also available at http://www.edmontoncdc.org
Please consider following that blog if you want to keep up to date on my work at the Edmonton Community Development Company.

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Strong Towns is an American movement that a colleague turned me on to the other day,  and it is not only a provocative movement, it offers an array of new thinking about the rules that cities and towns have when it comes to development, whether housing and business development or the inclusion of city services in an area like a recreational centre.

One thing that really caught my eye was the case made by Strong Towns to abolish parking requirements for new development.

One article provided a bit of a case study around thinking differently about parking in a town called Standpoint. A large bank wanted to build a branch in a neighbourhood that had historical significance. That development, according to the “rules” would have to provide 200 parking spots for the development to be approved. Alternatively, the bank could pay $10,000 per parking space not created. While such payment seems cost prohibitive to a development, the irony is that the parking requirement (apparently in place for the good of the community) could be bought off. This suggests that money trumps what is good for the community (according to the rules) or it could mean that this parking requirement was not all that necessary.

The bank bought a pizzeria and tore it down, but still did not have sufficient parking, so it began exploring buying a café and other businesses to meet the requirement. In other words city rules indicated that for the bank to be a viable development, other businesses (i.e. small businesses) would be torn down. Not really a desired economic development result, is it? And certainly not indicative of policy and rules that support small business development.

Interestingly there was a city owned parking lot a block away from the bank’s intended site, but that had no bearing on the rules. But my guess is that a bank and its patrons are not all that interested in customers having to walk a block to do their banking. As consumers, we want the convenience of parking right by the places we spend or, in this case, keep our money.

That said, in the Edmonton context, and our collective desire to foster more walkable neighbourhoods, shouldn’t we come to terms with how that goal might conflict with our conventional views of parking requirements? If our environmental concerns are to be actionable, don’t those concerns indicate that actions are necessary to reduce automobile-centric development?

In the end, to keep the story here short (read it all here), creative minds came up with an alternative solution. The parking requirements were reduced to the parking the bank had already created through demolishing the pizza business, without any in lieu payments, and instead the bank agreed to include a business incubator in its development, which apparently is so successful that the bank promotes it as part of its community programming.

This seems like a win-win-win from where I am sitting. The bank gets its development without destroying additional businesses, avoids paying the in lieu of parking penalty, and creates a needed economic service in the area that benefits local entrepreneurs.

While I am not yet decided on where I stand about the abolishment across the board of parking requirements, I suggest we need to tie together goals (like reducing reliance on automobiles and creating more walkable neighbourhoods) and also perhaps be more analytical about parking. For example, during the day many people leave their neighbourhoods to go to work and currently  the far majority do so in their cars. This frees up parking for business that operate during the day. At night these businesses close and the residents return home. In other words, the demand for parking changes with the time of day and should be considered by a municipal government in terms of the rules it wishes to put into place related to development.

Our current requirements of parking tends to favour large developments by large institutions that have the means to include the parking expense in their business development or expansion plans. They can, if necessary, buy up land to accommodate the parking requirements and sometimes in the process destroy other businesses. Small businesses cannot afford to do this. Not only that, small businesses become stuck at their current size because the cost of expansion, which includes creating a place for cars.

In a city where the goal is to improve environmental conditions, advance walkability, and foster more use of public transit, perhaps it is time to review and adapt parking requirements, if not abolish them altogether.

Perhaps seeing a development as a single entity subject to rules only about its own existence, we should be looking at shared parking requirements across developments and consider the demand for parking at various times of the day. Perhaps consumers need to change their expectations of parking at the front door of a bank or another business. And perhaps a rethink of parking requirements will actually foster more development that benefits a neighbourhood beyond the purpose of said development and increases the tax base for the municipal government.

Suggested Reading

Peoria’s Parking Problem

What happens when you fill your city with parking? Lots and lots of low value land, and not much else.

Parking has dramatically shaped our cities (and not in a good way).

Send this video to anyone who needs a crash course in why parking minimums are a major problem for American cities.

Ask R. Moses: How can I make the case against more parking?

My city leaders keep insisting we need more parking. How can I, as a citizen, make the case for less?

Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Parking Past

We’ve built too much of the wrong stuff in the wrong places and market demand may never catch up or reinvent these landscapes.

5 Resources for Ending Parking Minimums

Whether you’re a city staffer, nonprofit leader or just a strong citizen who cares, there’s something you can do to advocate for an end to parking minimums in your town.

Democracy is dying. Time to get to work.

Collective Impact, Complexity, economic choice, Economy, Government, Income Inequality, Poverty

I came across an article by George Monbiot (www.monbiot.com) that appeared in the Guardian this July. In this article, Monbiot writes about James McGill Buchanan, an economist influenced by neoliberalism and deeply funded by billionaire Charles Koch, the 7th wealthiest person in the world.

According to Monbiot, Buchanan was an advocate for what he called the public choice theory. The general gist is that “society could not be considered free unless every citizen has the right to veto its decisions. What he meant by this was that no one should be taxed against their will. But the rich were being exploited by people who use their votes to demand money that others have earned, through involuntary taxes to support public spending and welfare. Allowing workers to form trade unions and imposing graduated income taxes are forms of “differential or discriminatory legislation” against the owners of capital.

“Any clash between what he called ‘freedom’ (allowing the rich to do as they wished) and democracy should be resolved in favour of freedom. In his book The Limits of Liberty, he noted that “despotism may be the only organisational alternative to the political structure that we observe.” Despotism in defense of freedom. Continue reading Democracy is dying. Time to get to work. →

Working yet Homeless in Banff, Alberta

Affordable Housing, Economy, Homelessness, Income Inequality, Living Wage, Poverty

Banff, Alberta. Located in one of the most beautiful areas in Canada. People come from all over the world by the bus loads. There is money being made for sure. Nothing wrong with making money, right?

The hotel industry does alright. I perused hotels there via Expedia and most of the rooms available were $400 to $500 per night. Then there’s all the restaurants and bars, the tourist shops, art galleries, the rafting experiences, horseback riding, and on and on.

Life is good in Banff. Good for business people. Good for visitors who can afford to be there. But what about the workers at the clothing stores, or at the restaurants, or the ones who clean the rooms at the $500 per night hotel? Continue reading Working yet Homeless in Banff, Alberta →

LIVING POOR: KAREN’S STORY

Affordable Housing, Collective Impact, Complexity, Income, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

Note:  In addition to writing about community change and penning commentary, I am a story teller. I write fiction and spoken word. This piece is a mix of fact and fiction, often called “faction.”

One of my small luxuries in life is having someone come to my house weekly and clean it. I tell myself I need this service because I am so busy, but truth is it’s a luxury for me. I can afford it and to be honest I have the time to take care of my own mess; I just hate doing it.

Karen is the one who takes care of this for me. She is 24 and nearly always cheerful. She does an excellent job and in good time as well.  She is a friend of a friend and when I heard she was interested in providing this service, I decided to give her a go. Continue reading LIVING POOR: KAREN’S STORY →

Ending Precarious Employment – A Game-Changer Strategy

Economy, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

Precarious Employment is the jargon people like me use to describe the employment conditions and experiences of a growing number of workers in our country. Here is what that jargon means:

Precarious employment is in effect sub-standard employment that offers low wages that typically are not enough to live on, and that does not offer basic benefits like sick leave, vacation leave, or even unpaid bereavement leave. Health and dental benefits are too often absent as a benefit to low-wage workers.

In Ontario, according to the Wellesley Institute, one in three workers do not have health and dental benefits. And the lower your income the more likely you will not have these benefits. In fact, the Institute reports that only one in five persons making $10,000 or less receive health and dental benefits from their employer. As well, the Institute reports that it is not until workers are earning $60,000 per  year that the majority have employer provided health and dental benefits (90%). See this link from Benefits Canada’s website.

Such employment also lacks in any form of job security. Workers can be sent home on a slow day, laid off for seasonal reasons, or simply let go if they are seen to be a “problem.” By “problem” I mean when a worker has to stay home to take care of her child in a work environment where such leave is not allowed. It might be allowed on the books (unpaid sick leave) but not so in practice. Precarious employment can also include work situations where worker safety is ignored, side-stepped, and seen as an unnecessary drain on revenues.

Most employers are likely decent employers, but precarious employment is not rare. Living Wage Canada reports that one-quarter of workers are low-income, the highest rate in the world. Precarious employment is estimated to affect 50% of Ontario workers, according to the Fight for 15 and Fairness collaboration.

A livable income is a game-changer for people. Sufficient income means better access to health services, to good food, to accessing services for our children, for planning for the future, and participating in the economy. A good job offering sufficient income reduces mental health problems, helps reduce stress in family relationships and can avoid the embarrassment, not to mention lack of opportunity, that children face at school when their parents cannot afford the extra fees required for participation in a sport or other school activity. People who earn a livable income can turn their attention from survival to contributing to their community and the lives of those they love and care about.

Imagine if there were more groups, more community leaders, more businesses, more citizens focused on stopping precarious employment and increasing the number of jobs that compensate people fairly.

Systems would change, new and effective policies would surface, employers would treat workers with dignity and people’s human rights would be met.

For more information:

• Fight for $15 and Fairness (Ontario)
• Fight for $15 (British Columbia)
• Fight for $15 (Nova Scotia)
• Fight for $15 (United States)