A Hoboken Resident Finds Fault in Parking Minimums

Andrew Price writes in Strong Towns about his frustration with the requirement that businesses in Hoboken, NJ are still required to provide a number of parking spaces, given the size, density and walkability of the city. Price argues that the space allocated for parking could be better use dto provide more housing.

…Hoboken is one of the few places in the United States where not owning a car does not feel like a hindrance. In fact, this was a major selling point for us, and probably for a lot of other people (because the rent is incredibly high which signifies that there is a lot of demand to live here.)

What was the discussion going on in city hall when they thought this was needed? Is it to compete with the suburbs? Real estate prices in Hoboken are extremely high, a sign that there is huge demand to live here. I chose to live here because it is not suburban, so why would we adopt policies that make our city more suburban? Why do we adopt ordinances that make most of our city's character illegal if we were to develop it from scratch today?

Doing some rough estimations on the cost to provide parking in Hoboken, Price notes that the cost to house a car (in a typical parking stall) is about $812.50 per month "if housing a car per square foot matched housing a person." In a city where affordable housing is desperately needed, Price asks why it should "cost a person 108x (per square foot) to house themselves over their car?"