Our we really ready to give up our cars? Not if Casa Verde, a new apartment complex on North Park Way, close to the intersections of University Avenue and 30th Street, is any indication. The area has numerous bus lanes, a bikeway that removed around 450 parking spots, at least 20 restaurants and bars within a three block radius, as well as eight gyms/fitness shops, three yoga studios, a Target Express with grocery and a large CVS. Casa Verde was built with no resident-included parking but when they couldn't get people to move in they had to find a nearby garage and rent spaces to include in the leases. Now they are filling up with renters.
If you haven't heard, the movement to get rid of minimums on parking started with AB 2097, passed in 2022. With it the State of California got rid of parking minimum requirements for residential, commercial or development projects within .5 miles of a major transit stops. This was a huge shift for city planning and in theory could help with the housing shortage and affordability allowing for infill building in areas where there isn't enough room to add parking but there is good walk-ability and transit options.
San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) has locally been leading the way to try and encourage cities to decrease dependency on cars and move toward other forms of "green" transportation with things like bike lanes (I am looking at you 5th Avenue in Banker's Hill) and opening the blue trolley line which connects UCSD with the border. It has been such a divisive issue that the Executive Director of SANDAG, who was a proponent of a mileage use charge for every driver in San Diego, resigned in August and said, according to an article in the San Diego Union Tribune, it was partly due to his "distain for politics."
I follow issues like this because I work in real estate. While I see the environmental value of moving toward less emissions I think it is crazy to move from full parking to no parking in one swoop. In my mind it would be like cutting off your noise because it is running. Isn't there a less draconian solution? Perhaps AB 2097 can work in truly urban areas where you can walk to work as well as grocery stores and the like but much of San Diego was not built on that model so more things need to be done (like a trolley line to the airport!) before we get rid of parking completely. Casa Verde is a good lesson indicating that just because it seems like a good idea it may not actually work.