On Tuesday, council will hear proposals from city staff on how to revise parking in-lieu fees for the downtown.
Staff writes, “The proposed revisions to the downtown parking in-lieu fee have the potential of increasing available resources for creation and management of parking spaces to effectively increase the supply of parking available as well as providing driving alternatives to the public.”
Among the Downtown Parking Task Force’s Phase I recommendations were to evaluate the fee charged for that downtown development which does not provide for parking on-site.
Staff writes, “The explanation for this recommendation was that the City’s current parking in-lieu fee program may exacerbate downtown parking problems, particularly during peaks.”
They add that “the conditions triggering in-lieu fees and the fee amount should be re-examined including new development, conversion of uses, and outdoor dining.”
To assess this situation, last July, the city hired Walker Parking Consultants to provide an analysis of the fee and to present options to the city council.
In their summary they note, “The typical intention of most cities regarding the use of in-lieu fees, often challenging to achieve, is to provide structured parking somewhere in the district. Shared public parking rather than reserved private parking is one of many policy goals.”
The consultants find that “the City’s current $4,000 per required space, and its application to only some new development downtown, results in little revenue generated.”
On the plus side, “The City has deliberate policies that have resulted in a drive-alone transportation mode share significantly below any city similar in size. The bicycle mode share is the highest in the country.”
They add that “downtown Davis’ economy and financial resources are not at the level of the mainly coastal cities in California that offer developers a parking in-lieu fee option. Parking in-lieu fees of $25,000 or more than double that amount, charged in other cities, theoretically could generate more funds for significant transportation improvements including a parking structure.”
They add, “However, in Davis, we determine that an in-lieu fee set too high, would result in developers providing their own parking spaces rather than paying the fee, and therefore would encourage development patterns inconsistent with policy goals, rendering the policy moot.”
Therefore, among other things they recommend, “A fee that is high enough to make improvement in transportation and access in downtown Davis, but low enough to be in line with the economic realities and the constraints of downtown Davis.”
They think that Davis can sustain an increase from $4000 to $8700 with annual adjustments in cost.
City staff in their report had several important comments. First, “Parking in-lieu fees should not be expected to solve any existing parking supply problem. The in-lieu fees are intended to provide additional supply as well as cost effective, sustainable and practical alternatives to constructing new parking spaces to address the needs for parking and, more broadly, the need for access to downtown that is created by future developments, and is consistent with the broader plan and vision for downtown.”
Second, “In-lieu fees are an option for developers, and therefore provide flexibility for property owners. Property owners always have the option of providing on-site parking for development projects, based upon site, financial, and market factors.”
Third, “Downtown redevelopment can increase demand for vehicle parking. It can also increase vibrancy, walkability and the use of other transportation modes, while providing opportunities for businesses selling desired goods and services. Redevelopment can also increase sales and property taxes for the City, which could be used for parking programs or other municipal services.”
Fourth, “Over the past fifteen years, $180,000 has been collected in in-lieu fees. There is a current fund balance of $619,308, over one-third of which has come from interest on fund balances. Previous expenditures have been for parking lot rehabilitation, capital improvement projects, and administration.”
Staff also notes, “None of these monies have been expended since the 2008-09 fiscal year.”
In addition to the recommendation that the in-lieu fee increases to $8700 per required space, Walker also recommends that the city establish constancy in parking requirements across the various zoning districts.
Staff notes that this does not evaluate the number of spaces required. Instead, they anticipate “that the amounts of future development, and parking requirements, will be evaluated through the Core Area policy update now underway.”
The current code requires that parking in-lieu fees be used only “by the city to acquire and/or develop on-street or off-street parking and related facilities which are determined by the city council to alleviate the need for parking spaces in the core area.”
Like the Downtown Parking Task Force, Walker “recommends the funds generated through parking in-lieu fee program be used for incremental yet meaningful improvements to the transportation system.”
Staff notes, “This does not preclude future consideration of another parking structure when there is sufficient funding and driver demand, but could also include capital and program expenditures that increase the efficiency of the existing parking supply or encourage alternatives to private vehicles to effectively increase the parking supply and access to downtown.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“Can Revisions to Parking In-Lieu Fees Help Solve Downtown Parking Problems?”
Yes. Provided the money isn’t simply spent on blindly adding more car storage, but is instead spent on the cheaper, cleaner, safer and more efficient option of eliminating the need for additional car storage. The fee needs a new name though. We need to stop thinking about everything in terms of minimum car parking that is required to service the facility, and instead think in terms how best to serve the people who wish to visit or live in the facility.
Current fund balance: $619, 308
Cost for one new CNG bus: $558,027
Cost of a new above-ground parking structure with 500 stalls: $7,425,000.
Sure, some of this is recoverable, but it just shows how very little has been collected so far.
Approximate cost for 100 state-of-the-art new electric-assist cargo bikes that can carry four kids or two kids and lots of shopping, including secure storage in a bike share program, available in neighborhood pods where they could be shared by multiple families: $619,308.
$619, 308 is nevertheless very little and what’s missing is what we’d get for $8, 700 annually given that only $25,000 or more will – it’s implied – be enough to create “…significant transportation improvements”
Also:
Then consider a parking maximum, or even have a parking maximum of zero for some types of businesses and a fee for access improvement per square foot/type of business.
Assuming that the city should be self-contained at least for services – excepting of course an airport, certain county offices that cannot be in satellite facilities, huge concert venues, etc. – we need to create a formula that establishes a more or less concrete target for all modes of access to all areas of town, not just Downtown (not just cycling, and by the way we’re not meeting our targets for that – large supermarket-based complexes aside from U-Mall have a cycling modal share from 2 to 4% whereas the overall goal is 25% for this year and 30% for 2020. Davis is relatively great for cycling, sure, but the bar is so low it’s like saying we grow more tomatoes locally then they do in Alaska). In short, we need to prioritize sustainable access by improving transit, cycling and walking while making parking peripheral in both distance – people walk some distance from the stall in the mall, right? – and top-of-the-head necessity (rather than e.g. no car = starving children), with the right pricing only so that people don’t drive out of town, or feel unduly burdened if they need to carry more than four kids or 12 bags of groceries.
Ensure access for our wonderful (locally-owned) businesses, not parking.
I will be following the Council discussion on this item with interest. The in-lieu fee conversation is not happening in a vacuum. We have numerous unmet community needs. Two of the biggest are a severe housing shortage and a commercial space shortage. The former has been the subject of a lengthy ongoing community conversation. The latter? Not so much.
There are numerous homegrown businesses that wish to increase the size of their facilities, decrease the size, relocate, open 2nd businesses, get out from under their existing landlord, etc. There are also any number of budding entrepreneurs who wish to open new businesses in the hopes of earning an income to support themselves and their families (we can’t all work for UC Davis or local government!). There are precious few options for all of these tenants and prospective tenants.
We have fallen very short of our community goals for downtown redevelopment as foreseen in our General Plan and Core Area Specific Plan. These in-lieu fees are intended primarily to provide options to property owners to spur redevelopment and they should be reviewed in that context. That’s not to say in-lieu fee policy can’t also be used to achieve additional community goals. They can and they should.
What I would hope to hear from individual council-members Tuesday evening is how their directions to staff will spur redevelopment rather than discourage redevelopment.
Aren’t we asking a lot of in-lieu fees. We’ve gone from a $2 million plus increment stream to a few hundred thousand, maybe.
If what TM said is true, then in-lieu fees did exactly what they were supposed to do: allow downtown developers to get out of providing parking for a scandalously-low cost. In lieu of parking, pay a small fee that “goes towards” more parking that is never built.
If the program literally collected 1/10th of what was needed to build a parking structure, the in lieu fees should have been 10-times more, and the City charged 10% of what it should have, the rest a gift.
I say this as someone who believes downtown should grow upward, that Nishi and Covell Village should have been built. BUT, people are going to have cars, and you can’t “in-lieu” them away, keep growing, give away parking spots to restaurants, and then complain about the parking problems downtown.
Except your advocacy would have led to zero fees collected because nothing at all would have been developed and therefore no fees whatsoever collected. No fees, no additional parking, no additional residences and no additional commercial space.
Amen… a hearty one…
Nuance… an up-front fee for the “full thing” could stifle appropriate growth… I think we should consider doing it like a mortgage… 20-30% up front, the balance funded by annual assessments, with maybe a 10 year amortization period (levied on the property owner, not the business… another nuance). The total, including carrying costs needs to match the actual costs for develop the needed parking… devoted to that purpose, with no GF subsidies, except perhaps, as a ‘loan’, to be fully paid back without using sales tax or other revenues to do so.
Otherwise, we keep ‘digging the hole’.
What advocacy?
I hope someone on the consulting team the city has hired to update the CASP and the GP can do basic math otherwise the whole exercise will prove to be a complete waste of time and money.
I always find it strange that anyone can say this with a straight face, when the Cannery hasn’t even been completed, Chiles Ranch is on the horizon, properties at Willow Creek are available now, West Village will soon be expanded, Sterling has been approved, etc., etc. Of course, Sterling was a 5-acre industrial site, which could have an industrial site, which could have also functioned as a spot for all of those “budding entrepreneurs” that you apparently know of.
I guess some just can’t ever be satisfied.
Where’s my post?
[moderator] You used the wrong log-in.
Here’s your comment: