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On January 26, the Berkeley council unanimously approved a “parking reform package” that drastically reduced the requirements for parking in most new housing projects. The lot was sold as a transformative twofer that would induce a “mode shift”—plannerese for getting people out of their cars and on to bikes, public transit, and their own two feet—thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and at the same time expedite affordable housing.

The item originated as a 2015 referral from Councilmember Lori Droste. On January 27, Droste tweeted: “It is a thrilling day for climate action and affordability in our city.”

That remains to be seen. What can be said with certainty right now is that it was a moderately thrilling day for housing developers. Onsite (off-street) parking is expensive to build. The council eliminated parking minimums in all new housing projects except in the H (Hills) and ES-R (Environmental Safety-Residential, i.e., wildfire) Districts and the enactment of provisional parking maximums in transit-rich areas of the city. Provisional, because a developer can ask for permission to exceed the maximums. As Droste put it: “We’re not banning parking, we’re just not requiring people to build parking if they don’t need it.” The operative term here is the antecedent of “they”: I take it to be “developers.” In other words, this is developer-driven policy.

It can also be said with certainty that January 26 was not a thrilling day for data-driven decisionmaking. The council approved the changes with scant evidence that they would get people to drive less and no evidence whatsoever that they would lower the cost of housing. 

What Berkeley’s Residential Parking Utilization Study really showed 

On January 27, Droste retweeted Berkeley Housing Advisory Commissioner and California Yimby staffer Darrell Owens’ statement that “[a] recent staff analysis found that nearly 50% of the existing off-street parking spots in housing projects around the city sit empty.” Droste commented: “that’s why we abolished parking requirements and imposed no more than half a building can have parking yesterday.” 

That’s disputable. The staff analysis [see Attachment 4, agenda for Council Special Meeting, January 26 (continued from December 15, 2020), p. 175 of the council packet] was supposedly based on the Parking Utilization Study conducted by Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates in October 2019. The study focused on multi-unit residential projects of ten or more units, most of them with unbundled parking (on-site but you have to pay for it). According to city staff, the study “showed that only 54% off street parking was occupied. It also showed that 60% of on-street parking spaces near surveyed buildings were occupied—suggesting that on-street parking ‘spillover’ was not a concern.” 

That’s not what the study showed. In a February 3, 2021, memo to the Albany City Council and other Albany agencies, Albany Planning Commissioner Doug Donaldson accurately summarized the findings of the Berkeley study: 

“Albany’s parking standards for mixed-use projects call for 1 space for each unit. A recent study of multi-family residential parking in Berkeley indicates that this would be sufficient, but that removing the parking minimum would significantly increase the on-street parking demand. The study found that the average on- and off-street parking occupancy across 20 properties surveyed was 55% (53% off-street and 61% on-street—this on-street component is important because most of the properties have unbundled parking and many tenants choose not to pay for an off-street space). A search of DMV records indicated that .5 vehicles were registered per unit.” 

In an email, Donaldson observed to me that “Nelson Nygaard did their surveys after midnight and monitored the parking on the streets around the buildings. At that hour there is no turnover and cars parked near the buildings are likely to be associated with those buildings. At least that has been my experience when monitoring 510 Centro in El Cerrito Plaza. Also, Nelson Nygaard had license plate info from RpP permits. That info gave them the addresses associated with each plate.” 

In short, the Berkeley study did find that on-street spillover parking was a concern, though given the empty spaces in the onsite parking, it’s hard to call this “spillover.” No evidence here that unbundling parking dissuades people from owning and driving cars. 

The affordability myth 

The approval of the parking reform package was based on yet another data-challenged premise: the notion that if you reduce or just eliminate parking requirements in residential projects, housing will be less expensive—in other words, that developers’ savings will trickle down to tenants’ lower rents. 

That notion elicited skepticism from Councilmember Susan Wengraf. “What mechanisms,” Wengraf asked, “do we have in place that would lower the cost of housing with lower parking requirements?” 

Pearson replied that lower parking requirements would reduce the costs of production, but that “we cannot be sure that that discount will be passed on to residents.” Interim Planning Director Jordan Klein went further, stating that “the actual price of housing is driven primarily by market rate—like what the market will actually pay for it.” 

Wengraf responded: “I have a fear that this will not result in lower housing costs. Have you done any research in other cities that have imposed these kinds of restrictions on parking” and “is there any kind of analysis on how it turned out in terms of housing costs?” 

None was available at the meeting. Droste said, “There are plenty of studies.” I’ve twice emailed her office asking for links to a few such studies. She has yet to reply. 

Wengraf asked that the council evaluate the reduced parking requirements policy in five years “and see if it’s had any impact at all on housing costs.” Then she joined her colleagues in voting to approve the “reform package.” 

Transit-rich hype 

To be viable, a shift away from private auto use requires the existence of something to shift to. For all their homage to biking and walking, the parking reformers tacitly concede that the key alternative to driving is public transit. That’s why the newly approved parking maximums only apply to new projects in “transit-rich areas.” 

The council’s packet included a map of such areas (unmarked as Attachment 6, appears on p. 188 of the agenda). The map shows parts of the city that are “1/4 Mile from Transit Hubs and Corridors.” Such areas appear to encompass most of Berkeley outside of the high hills, indicated as territory east of Spruce Street and College Avenue. Whether they were ever “transit-rich” is debatable. That they are currently transit-poor is undeniable. 

Councilmember Sophie Hahn represents District 5 (north Berkeley and low hills). At the January 26 meeting, Hahn said, The main line in my district has been discontinued, and I'm worried that it won’t be coming back. We’ve built with the anticipation of a bus line, and it’s not there.” 

City staff tried to assuage such apprehensions. “We’ve heard about a lack of service, without which we can’t expect a shift from private vehicle use….,” said Principal Planner Alene Pearson. “So we asked ourselves: What should come first: a change in behavior, or a change in conditions?” Cue a PowerPointed photo of a chick and an egg. “Do you propose policies that are supported by existing conditions? Or do you propose policies that will influence future conditions?” In this case, staff and the Planning Commission decided to “propose policies that will make change happen.” 

Pearson continued: “[P]rior to Covid, transit was expanding and increasing in use. Remember the double-decker transit buses, the new BART trains, ferry service and bike stations like the ones in Center Street Garage?....The regulations we’re discussing today will be applied to…projects that will not be constructed for at least another two years. We are confident that once Covid is under control, the improved transit service and usage that were in effect before will return.” 

I used to ride AC Transit, Muni, and BART a lot. I do not remember the double-decker buses. I do remember the new BART trains; they were comfortable and attractive. Unfortunately, they were also defective. The day before the council meeting, the San Jose Mercury ran a story under the headline “BART ‘Fleet of the Future’ Hits Software, Reliability Roadblock.” Nico Savidge reported that the new trains’ manufacturer, Bombardier, and BART “once promised they would have more than 600 new cars in service by the end of 2020, with the full fleet of 775 zipping around the Bay Area a year later. Instead, BART has only received 286 cars, and estimates the full order won’t arrive until spring 2023. And that could slip further depending on how long the reliability problems take to fix.” Whatever you think of ferries and bikes, they won’t suffice to transport Berkeley’s residents, workers, and visitors, including people accessing the University. 

Then there’s the claim that before Covid, Bay Area transit was expanding and increasing in use. In February 2020, researchers housed at UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies and funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission reported that the reality was more complex: “Service is up and patronage is down.” 

“[D]espite a booming economy in 2027 and 2018,” wrote the UCLA team, “the [Bay Area] lost over 27 million annual transit boardings, over 5 percent of all transit trips. Transit patronage in 2019 was back to where it was in 2008. Excluding the two largest operators, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (Muni) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), regional ridership is less than 90 percent of where it was a decade ago.” 

At the same time, “since 2014 most systems have been adding hours and mileage, in some cases substantially. But just as service supply is on the rise, ridership has again begun to fall. The Bay Area has, therefore, avoided a spiral of service cuts and ridership losses, as happened in other metro areas, but instead faces the perhaps more vexing issue of increased service carrying fewer riders.” 

Now both service and ridership have plummeted. On January 18, Droste tweeted: “In 2015, I proposed reforming our antiquated parking requirements. finally 5 YEARS LATER, it will be coming back to Council.” Thanks to Covid and Work from Home, the new rules, barely a month old, were passé even before they were approved. 

Transit’s future in the Bay Area is currently a huge question mark. Given that uncertainty, this is a moment to wait and see what happens to work and travel in the wake of widespread vaccination. Instead, the council opted for virtue signaling. At least housing developers will be pleased.