Staedler: San Jose trails California in parking standards

October 3, 2022September 30, 2022

Staedler: San Jose trails California in parking standards

Parking meters in Downtown San Jose. Photo by Jana Kadah.

Parking requirements have been reduced in some new housing developments with the advent of AB 2097. San Jose has been touted as leading this and the state following course. That is clearly not the case.

San Jose officials voted in June to “craft a policy to eliminate parking minimums.” They should not be given credit for something that has not happened yet. That would be like congratulating San Jose for the supposed 25,000 homes promised years ago.

A vote on a plan is not the same as implementing a policy change. The city hopes to vote on a plan by late November or early December. Why does it have to take that long to vote on something? It’s not rocket science, it’s simply amending or striking out sections of the municipal code on this. San Jose officials discussed proposed changes in August 2021, then had a hearing in June of this year.

Here is a link to the city’s webpage: Parking and Transportation Demand Management Ordinance Update. When you click on the “What outreach has been conducted?” tab, it shows a list of meetings with recordings dating back to January 2020:

City Council Hearing – Parking/Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Ordinance Update Policy Direction, June 14, 2022
Planning Commission Hearing – Parking/Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Ordinance Update Policy Direction, June 8, 2022
SPUR Digital Discourse, “Eliminating Barriers to Common-Sense Transportation Projects,” March 31, 2022
SPUR Digital Discourse, “Coming to Terms with the Bay Area’s Parking Problems,” Feb. 28, 2022
San José City Council Study Session: Parking and Transportation Demand Management, Aug. 27, 2021
SPUR Digital Discourse, “Imagining a City that Puts People First,” Aug. 13, 2021
In-Person Public Workshop at Veggielution Farm, Aug. 7, 2021
Virtual Public Workshop, July 22, 2021
Virtual Public Workshop, June 24, 2021
Developer Roundtable Meeting, June 18, 2021
Developer Roundtable Meeting, April 16, 2021
SPUR Digital Discourse, “From Transit to Tipoff: Solving the Transportation Challenges of Large Venues,” Feb. 25, 2021
Greenbelt Alliance Forum, “Parking Reform for Climate Smart Communities,” June 24, 2020
SPUR Digital Discourse, “What Happens When You Eliminate Parking.” June 4, 2020
Urban Land Institute Technical Assistance Panel at Planning Commission, Jan. 29, 2020
Staff has additionally engaged with over a dozen community groups and neighborhood associations from 2019 to 2022.

San Jose has dragged its feet on making these changes since 2019. The housing crisis this region faces could have been eased by making developments less costly to develop years ago. If San Jose wants to back its claim of being a “transit first” city, then why wasn’t this parking reduction voted on already?

It’s because voters in affluent areas are not keen on this idea. Draw your own conclusions from there. If you look at the past practices of the San Jose City Council voting on unpopular items, it will more than likely be put on the agenda for the last council meeting of the year and voted on around midnight. That diminishes community comment and then city officials tout this as a successful outreach moment with what’s listed above.

Let’s walk the talk of being a “transit first” city and vote on this in October.

San José Spotlight columnist Bob Staedler is a principal at Silicon Valley Synergy, a San Jose-based land use and development consulting firm. His columns appear every first Monday of the month. Contact Bob at [email protected] or follow @BobStaedler on Twitter.

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Comments (11)

My_Opinion Oct 03, 2022 at 12:29PM

Didn’t Bob work for the San Jose Redevelopment Agency? Whatever happened to that agency, Bob?

To answer your question, Bob, perhaps it’s because the California Environmental Quality Act — CEQA — that “requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible.” CEQA studies are complex, exhaustive.

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Piers Mnuchin Oct 03, 2022 at 1:38PM

Transit first is lunacy when you have the worst public transit agency and system in the nation. Fix that first and then we can have a serious discussion.

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Fake Outreach Oct 03, 2022 at 3:21PM

The city needs to remove the nonprofit partners (SPUR with 5 official outreach meetings) from the equation and let actual residents make the decisions or through outreach from their representatives/council. The nonprofit “outreach” is selective and always has a pre planned agenda.

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- Local Yokel Reprise Oct 05, 2022 at 2:55PM
  
  I’d like to see real “transportation” organizations also made to engage in their correct mission once again, transportation, and properly limited to that, not to housing, taxation, someday even employment policy (including employment quotas that were broached by MTC once upon a recent time and could well come from activists in state government on the heels of demented RHNA mid-future to push their housing development goals).
  
  MTC is an ideal miscreant poster child example of this.
  
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aurelia sanchez Oct 04, 2022 at 8:09AM

After reading this article, I again going to comment why we need a Mayor and council members with common sense that represent all residents of this city. District 3 has a mix of supportive housing, affordable housing, owner-occupied housing and of course our homeless housing in addition to downtown with all the restaurants, schools, etc. I am voting for Irene Smith as oppose to Omar Torres because she understands we cannot eliminate parking requirements if she truly is to represent District 3. Omar Torres believes in the no parking policy which surprises me since Washington is like Spartan Keyes is where many of the working people are gardners, house cleaners, construction workers and do not have the luxury from working from home. Vehicles are important for many families like mine because not everyone is going to work a few miles from home or work from 9-5. Downtown does not have many retail stores or major grocery stores like Walmart that offer lower prices for food for working families. Some might say they can ride the bus to buy groceries but trying to haul a carton of milk, bread, meat and other food items is not easy especially if you are disabled or a senior like me. Some argue it will reduce the cost of building housing but again we will limit who will be living in this housing. Spotlight has reported time and time again that the unhoused do not want to give up their vehicles or RV’s because if something happens they use these as shelters and Second Street Studios is a good example where tenants hang on to their vehicles. I urge compromise on parking for new buildings and I feel Irene Smith can work well with transit advocates, neighborhoods and housing developers because of her work experience, maturity and educational background.

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Darlene Tenes Oct 04, 2022 at 9:40AM

After reading Bob Staedler’s opinion piece as a paid lobbyist, “San Jose trails California in parking standards” in the Spotlight, I wish to weigh in on the topic.

Contrary to his conjecture that “It’s because voters in affluent areas are not keen on this idea”, this new measure which allows developers to build without parking requirements is extremely prejudicial against low income individuals and especially those who would have difficulties using a bike or walking.

Statistically affordable housing is close to evenly split between three groups:

Families with school age children

Seniors 62 years and older

Non-Seniors with disabilities

Additionally 75% of those living in affordable housing are women.

Are single parents expected to pick up their kids at multiple schools on their bike or the bus? This would also leave their children unable to participate in sports, music or other after-school activities.

Are seniors or those with disabilities expected to hop on a bike or walk to a grocery store a mile away and then carry their groceries back?

Most lower income individuals are working manual labor occupations whereas they must commute, need a truck or vehicle to get them to each location, and/or carry the tools of their trade.

Health and safety issues are paramount concerns. Imagine some of these fragile individuals walking during heat waves or thunderstorms and at night where they are vulnerable to violent crimes.

There is a big difference between other cities such as San Francisco, New York and Chicago where there are skyscraper apartment buildings, a tighter landscape and a robust transportation infrastructure.

Although I am aware of the positive environmental impact of having less cars on the road, should this not be implemented more fairly?

Individual home owners have multiple vehicles and as the income level rises there are more individuals with secondary commuter, sports, or collectible autos at their disposable. The majority of higher income individuals are able to work and have meetings virtually.

If your true desire of Climate Smart San Jose is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions then why is not every resident restricted to one or a limited amount of vehicles per household?

I encourage the developers and city planners who idyllically wish to, “spur residents to ditch their cars and hop onto a bus or train, ride a bicycle or even walk” to lead by example. Ditch all your fancy cars and hop on a bus. Not for fun, for your livelihood. Let me know how that goes.

Darlene Tenes

Lifelong East San Jose Resident

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- Local Yokel Reprise Oct 05, 2022 at 2:51PM
  
  The delusional believe every place can be transformed into downtown San Francisco or an eastern “Skyline” city.
  
  So many of these people also hate single-family residential housing, or even more particularly, single family home owners.
  
  They hate cars, and parking, too, perfect developer and pol fodder. That includes planners in local governments who are often behind anti-parking changes to parking policies (with existing parking already often inadequate, especially if built in earlier decades).
  
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Danny Garza Oct 04, 2022 at 10:02AM

Dear Community,

I totally understand why Organizations like SPUR do not invite Residents like me to their Functions or meetings any more.

I know their Leadrrs a little bit and they know me a bit.

The issue is this –
I have been ignored or left out of the Conversation because I am not totally in agreement with their Work, Work that they call “for the Community”.

They have ignored Neighborhood Community Leadership.

They seem to collaborate with other 501c3’s that continue to live off TAXPAYERS DOLLARS.

CLAIMING TO HAVE THE ABILITY OF SPEAKING FOR THE COMMUNITY.

NOBODY IN ANY ORGANIZATION CAN DO THAT OR MAKE THAT CLAIM WITHOUT NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION MEETINGS AND PERMISSION.

SPUR and the Other 501c3’s can have all of the meetings they want –

However

THEY CAN NOT HONESTLY DECLARE THAT 501c3’s ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COMMUNITY HERE IN THE EAST VALLEY WITHOUT MEETING OUR NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION LEADERSHIP.

Simply put – its Smoke and Mirrors to make Representative Claims like that.

They have NEVER, NEVER, NEVER-EVER ATTENDED A PLATA ARROYO NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION MEETING.

Again, Audit every 501c3 in the East Valley.

01. Give us their financial Information, Salaries etc.

02. Their meetings Minutes.

03. Their Meetings Dates

04. Their agendas

05. List of Board Members

This goes back to requirements to be a 501c3.

Remember –

Please remember, Peter Ortiz is the Business Advisor for the Alum Rock Business Association and they have done nothing to answer the Plata Arroyo Neighborhood Association and Gateway East N.A.C. requests for Required Public Information.

We must make sure that Accountability will the NUMBER ONE GOAL OF OF 501c3s CLAIMING TO REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY.

Bottom Line –
Wecrepresent over 60% of Districtv5 Families.

SPUR has not attended any Neighborhood Association meetings in Arbuckle Neighborhood Association, the Mayfair Neighborhood Association, the Mayfair N.A.C., the Cassell Neighborhood Association, the Capitol Park / Goss NeighborhoodAssociation, or Plata Arroyo Neighborhood Association andEastgate N.A.C. Association.

Without involving these Leader’s, the honest, open, and Transparent questions become –

• What East Valley Neighborhood Association Meetings has SPUR attended?

• When did they attend these Neighborhood Associations?

• Who did SPUR Reach out to in the Neighboring Association?

• Who was invited to attend?

• Where is the Sign-In sheet?

• What was discussed?

• Was there a Vote involved?

• What did the Vote Language – Say and Represent?

These questions come from our 5 Neighborhood Associations

A. Everything We said is true.

B. Documentation for correctness is avaliable.

C. We have no Hate Speech here.

D. There is no personal attacks just accurate and accountable information.

E. This is all related to the article for truth in the Community.

That is opinion.

In Community Spirit,
Danny Garza

President
Plata Arroyo Neighborhood Association and Gateway East N.A.C.
_
Guadalupe Gonzalez

President
Mayfair Neighborhood Association and Mayfair N.A.C.
_
Ernesto Barajas

President
Cassell Neighborhood Association
_
Sandy Flores

President
Capitol Park / Goss / Dobern
Neighborhood Association

Gloria Zamudio

_
President
Arbuckle Neighborhood Association

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Cindy Oct 04, 2022 at 5:28PM

This is the worst idea ever! Our transit system sucks! It’s unsafe, acts as a home for the homeless, people travel to work nowadays very few live close enough to actually use transit! Eliminating parking is for the sole purpose of making the developer even more money! We are not NY or Jersey, out even Europe, stuck up transit ever the sun doesn’t shine

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Local Yokel Reprise Oct 05, 2022 at 2:48PM

What we’re seeing that has the Usuals dissatisfied with the rate that it is happening is the reduction and elimination of off-street parking, instead of requiring adequate off-street parking (a lesson learned from development in the earlier post-war decades, especially with apartment complexes, that lacks adequate parking).

It’s being done as a pro-developer-enrichment, pro-density measure, sought most by developers and amenable politicians, especially those who can enjoy generous development-related campaign contributions and other related political benefits, and warped anti-car and anti-parking activists who are the real parties’ Useful Idiots. (It also includes YIMBYs that are a full spectrum of warpage and development ties.) It has been true since more development (even more than more density) has been sought more vigorously as a pro-“housing” desire and movement. DOWN goes the state.

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SJ Kulak Oct 07, 2022 at 9:32AM

All this will do is hurt poor people in California. Go to any apartment district in San Jose and try to park and not have to walk like 25 minutes home. they fight for these “progressive” values because they have never been to where real people live and think everything is the Rose Garden or downtown Mountain View. These same politicians will be calling this Redlining 2.0 in the future, along with Rent Control, Inclusionary Fees, Urban Growth Boundaries, CEQA, and Causa Justa. And then blame it on white supremacy, because of course, Redling 1.0 was New Deal program pushed by FDR and in place through Truman.

You people are such marks.

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Staedler: San Jose trails California in parking standards

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