Housing, Livability, and Cars: Notes on Overlay Zones and Origin of Free Parking

The role of housing lurks in the background of two items at Council, the information report on downtown parking and the formal Hearing on repealing the overlay zones.

See recently here:

• "DAB starts Discussion of Parking Schedule, Previews Council Report"
• "Mixed-Use Project on Commercial and Bush Evidence to Ditch Complexity of Overlay Zones," also with links to more discussion.
  

Here are some additional notes.

Back in August of 1977 free parking in our downtown parking district started.

August 7th, 1977

They were explicit about offering parking for shoppers: "The effort to provide more free parking in downtown Salem...is designed to offer customers the convenience of shopping malls...."

August 1st, 1977

In the lead up to it, the City's "renewal administrator," published a breathless opinion piece. "One can already feel the pulse quickening in downtown Salem...more interesting, stimulating, and just plain fun for people."

October 31st, 1976

It's all so autoist and suburban. There are essentially no residents and no homes in this conception. It's a drive-to destination for entertainment, shopping, and errands. It is not itself a neighborhood. It's for transitory amusement, for a kind of tourism. Downtown is a mall.

It exemplifies nation trends, of course, the flight from the inner city, although it's not really true to say Salem had an inner city.

An important ingredient in the hollowing out of downtown is the expansion of the Capitol Mall, of Willamette University, of the Civic Center, and of the Pringle Creek Urban Renewal Area. Families might voluntarily have moved out of those close-in neighborhoods, but our institutions and big redevelopment projects also displaced them. The loss of Piety Hill is our great image for this.

So there are also some details more particular to Salem in this.

• On this, see most recently here, "Evolution or Erosion? Capitol Shopping Center Rose on Edge of Downtown in late 1940s"

Amusing is a wild estimate for parking need.

16,000 parking stalls for year 2000!
January 30th, 1977

An editorial of Third Bridge mania suggested that in the year 2000 we could suffer an "estimated deficit in parking spaces" for "16,000 cars."

The current parking district has 3,417 stalls. We are far from that deficit!

But the editorial is also clear on the voracious appetite of our autoism: "downtown would become one vast car warehouse." 

You may remember Ada Louise Huxtable's words from 1970, which we cite here pretty often:

Some day, some American city will discover the Malthusian truth that the greater number of automobiles, the less the city can accommodate them without destroying itself. The downtown that turns itself into a parking lot is spreading its own dissolution.

They never did think this through and make a real effort to find "alternatives."

But we can do so now. More housing that supports carfree and low-car life will be important.

One objection to ending free parking has been distance.

December 2022

Here's the distance from the middle of the Chemeketa Parkade to Epilogue Kitchen drawn on the old Lancaster Mall and the new Costco.

Downtown, old Lancaster Mall, new Costco
at same scale with a walk (click to enlarge)

Many destinations from the Chemeketa Parkade are significantly closer. The Liberty Parkade is about half that distance.

Somehow distances at malls and big box stores become intolerable downtown.

But for people who need parking spaces right at their destination, right-priced parking will do a better job of ensuring there is a spot when you need it. And of course there will remain handicapped spots for those who need them.

Right-priced parking means you can enjoy a "free" space in the garages and "pay" in time with a slightly longer walk; or you can pay in coin for the certainty of proximity with a closer on-street spot. This is in fact more and better options!

Maybe this time ending free parking will not be as contested so heavily. It may be that the cultural tide is finally turning, and enough people understand "the high cost of free parking." We had nearly 50 years of it, and it never was any guarantee of downtown health. Downtown has always seemed in peril. The information report at Council has not occasioned public comment so far.

Overlay Zones

Related to discounting the value of downtown housing, is the current debate over the overlay zones on lower commercial, from Candalaria to Sleepy Hollow.  Council will hold a Public Hearing on removing five of them, the Saginaw Street, Superior-Rural, Oxford-West Nob Hill, Oxford-Hoyt, and Hoyt-McGilchrist Overlay Zones.

One person who lives on Fairmount submitted a gracious and generous comment to Council in support of ending the overlay zones. They write about the potential for loss of views, about aesthetics, and contrast that with prospects for a greater loss of snow and ice, about climate. They welcome newcomers.

As a Fairmount Hill resident, I feel lucky to live where I live. Just as my other Fairmount Hill neighbors, I appreciate walking around the neighborhood and seeing the views of Mt. Jefferson. I love the number of people who garden, and the amazing amount of work they put in. I understand the concerns they voice about the upzoning, and the potential impacts on views and sunlight.

But in balance, I support the upzoning proposal. I want more neighbors to meet, to play with my kids, to join us in the annual Fairmount Hill Halloween parade. I'm optimistic buildings might eventually include more coffee shops or restaurants or places to walk to. I'd rather meet my daily needs on foot, rather than having to bike or drive further afar.

We, as a city, need more housing people can afford. And we need more neighborhoods that are truly walkable, if we're going to meet our climate goals. I want a view of a Mt. Jefferson that has snow on the top of it, even if that view is slightly harder to seek out. We need to act on climate disruption, for the sake of future generations, and ourselves. This small step is one of a thousand. But I encourage you to take it.

Other comment primarily values the loss of views and protecting the privileges of incumbency. SCAN writes:

Removing the overlay zones shifts the established balance between residential and nonresidential uses in favor of the mixed-use zoned properties at the expense of the livability, quality of life, and property values of the existing residential uses adjacent to the overlay zones...significant housing density can be achieved in a 3-floor, 35-foot tall building, especially if it is designed to include small studio apartments.

Four stories of retail and housing: Ideal

Doesn't pencil out

You may recall a sketch from 2018 on the State Street Corridor study. Between parking and rents, a four-story structure didn't seem to pencil out. Three stories sounds theoretically possible and attractive, but it too may not pencil out. 

Insisting on low height limits is likely a poison pill that ensures nothing is built. Parking has functioned this way, and we finally got rid of those requirements. It is time to think more about height.

How is does this contribute to greater livability...

Bush and Commercial last week

...than this?

Proposed mixed-use building for that same lot

"Livability" that demands spaced out single detached housing, and enforces restrictive policies that retard development and guarantee empty lots, is another kind of ornamental emptiness.

While this project at Bush and Commercial has only a small portion in an overlay zone, it is the size and kind of project proponents of the overlay zones want to exclude from them.

With three stories only, does anything get built?

Here's a shorter version that SCAN would apparently support. But under what conditions does this actually get built? Does it meet any plausible financial projection?

Our debates on zoning don't often enough look at representative development financials. Policies that sound reasonable might hinder the desired outcome too much. We should at least surface them so they are explicit and can be debated on the merits with trade-offs made transparent.

Midrise and livability: from cars to people
via twitter

In any case, if we want a Strong Towns style property tax base more fully to fund street frontage improvements, and if we want sufficient numbers of people on the street to convert them away from cars, as in a stroad-to-boulevard conversion, we'll want much more midrise along them.

A Nelson/Nygaard proposal with midrise
from the defunct Stroad to Boulevard tumblr