Talya Schwartz from Open Plans on removing parking mandates in City of Yes for Housing Opportunity
0:43:05
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3 min
Talya Schwartz, lead strategist at Open Plans, testifies in support of the City of Yes initiative, focusing on the removal of parking mandates. She presents data from Open Plans research demonstrating how parking mandates increase housing costs and reduce the number of housing units that can be built.
- Schwartz argues that for every 1.2 parking spaces constructed, one unit of housing is lost, effectively trading parking for apartments.
- She provides a detailed cost breakdown, showing how parking requirements can significantly increase development costs and rent prices.
- The testimony highlights that low-income households, despite owning fewer cars, bear a disproportionate burden of these additional costs.
- Support for removal of unnecessary parking mandates
- Parking mandates increase housing costs significantly
- For every 1.2 parking spaces constructed, one unit of housing is lost
- Parking mandates can increase rent by an estimated 17%
- Low-income households bear the brunt of additional costs from parking mandates despite owning fewer cars
- Removal of parking mandates will help businesses grow and remove obstacles to the economy
- In affordable developments, requiring parking spots raises total development costs by 12.5% to 25%
- The cost to subsidize parking is more expensive for people in smaller and more affordable housing
[EXPERIMENTAL]
Which elements of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity were discussed in this testimony?
- Parking Mandates
The following are AI-extracted quotes and reasoning about which elements of the proposal were discussed in this testimony.
This is a quick, close approximation. Occasionally, the connection between a testimony's transcript and specific elements of City Planning's proposal is tenuous.
Read about this AI-generated analysis here.
Parking Mandates
"I'm testifying in support of the city of US and especially focused on the removal of the unnecessary and onerous parking mandates, which cost residents and business owners too much money."
This quote directly mentions the speaker's focus on removing parking mandates, which is a key element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.
"Parking makes building houses much more expensive, And while in some cases, parking may be worth it in other areas close to public transportation, it's just an onerous obstacle."
This quote discusses how parking mandates increase housing costs, which aligns with the proposal's aim to remove parking mandates to reduce housing costs.
"For a hypothetical 100 unit development of studio apartments that require a 4 to 1 base to unit ratio, there would be 40 parking spaces mandated. The cost to build 40 parking spaces is approximately the same as the cost to build 33 studio apartments."
This quote provides a specific example of how parking mandates reduce the number of housing units that can be built, which is a key argument for removing parking mandates in the proposal.
"Research has shown that parking mandates have the potential to also increase rent by an estimated 17%."
This quote directly relates to the proposal's argument that mandating parking drives up rent, which is one of the issues addressed by removing parking mandates.
About this analysis:
This analysis is done by AI that reasons whether or not a quote from the testimony discusses a particular element of the proposal.
All the prompts and data are open and available on Github.
You can search for testimonies that mentioned a specific element in the table on the main meeting page.
When an element is explicitly stated in the testimony (e.g. "Universal Affordability Preference" or "UAP"), the analysis is accurate.
But the connection between a quote from the testimony and an element of the proposal is sometimes implicit.
In these cases, the AI might eagerly label a testimony as discussing a proposal when the connection is tenuous, or it might omit it entirely.