A new housing development complex in National City, California has underscored the difficulties that public transit advocates often face when providing affordable housing, a recent article in Voice of San Diego notes.
From the get-go, city leaders had high hopes for the Paradise Creek project and its ability to encourage and generate use of public transportation. After all, the 201-unit complex is in one of the most walkable areas of San Diego County and sits near plenty of public transit hubs, including bus stops and a trolley station. It was one of a handful of projects to receive a sustainable communities grant from the EPA and also won state cap-and-trade funds aimed at encouraging affordable housing near public transit.
To the chagrin of city leaders and public transportation advocates, however, the project ended up with even more parking spaces than it has units. 308 to be exact. That also exceeds the city's 236-space minimum parking requirement for the area. And that's not a big boon for public transit use.
The developers say the city simply came too late to the table in trying to encourage the developer to swap parking for more amenities or alternative transportation infrastructure. An effort by National City and its executive director of planning and community development Brad Raulston to reduce parking spaces began when the project was already past the planning stage and that made it difficult to reverse course. For its part, the city says it was preoccupied by the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and the effects of the 2008 recession.
There's another reason the developer chose to err on the side of more parking spaces though. Parking pays. Or, rather, a lack of it can really threaten marketability.
"If you’re a family choosing between Development A and Development B and the economics are the same, the project with more access to parking is going to be at an advantage,” said Michael Massie, the site's project manager. “As the culture changes and public transit becomes more a part of people’s lives that will become less true. You just don’t see that here yet.”
Fair enough. But had the cap-and-trade funds encouraged reductions in parking, it would have been easier for the city to make its case, according to National City's Community Development Program Manager Carlos Aguirre. And therein lies the paradox.
"There’s this whole discussion at the state level to try and incentive [sic] reducing our carbon footprint by funding affordable housing projects that are near public transportation lines, but they’re not asking for a reduction in parking,” he added.
Construction on the Paradise Creek apartments began in November. The first units are expected to be available sometime in late 2016.
Image Credit: Flickr User ben30, https://flic.kr/p/fQuQf via (CC BY-SA 2.0)