By Adam Swift
Local and regional experts answered a number of questions regarding parking regulations and how they affect housing development at a public forum hosted by the city last week.
The forum comes as the city begins to take a look at reducing parking minimums for residential development in the Chelsea zoning ordinances.
“We are not talking about eliminating parking opportunities on the street level,” said Chelsea Director of Planning and Community Development Ben Cares. “What we are talking about is trying to match our zoning rules to what the market demands, what people are looking for when they move into a development. This is not about removing those opportunities to park your car on Chelsea streets, rather, it is about reducing the costs of constructing housing so we can build more housing.
“When we build more housing, we build more affordable housing and we meet the demand that exists.”
Currently, the city’s zoning requires 1.5 parking spots per unit for residential development. However, Cares noted that the majority of recent developments have sought parking relief from the zoning board of appeals so that there are already many residential buildings that do not meet those parking requirements.
Residents who live in developments that have been granted parking relief by the city are not allowed to take part in Chelsea’s residential on-street parking permit program.
“What we know from date, and what we have seen in terms of how people utilize parking on site is that that is way too much parking that any given development needs,” said Cares. “When we require that much parking on site, that causes us to produce less housing. Because we have a policy that every time you build housing, you have to build some affordable housing, that means we are building less affordable housing for our residents overall.”
Reducing the parking minimum requirements could help incentivize development, build more housing, and achieve the city’s housing supply goals.
An increased housing supply can help stabilize rents and encourage more people to use public transportation, Cares said.
“When less parking is provided with a development, people moving into that development don’t automatically assume that they’ll be able to use a car on that site,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that no one’s getting a parking spot; developers still need to build out parking because people look for that in a development. But what we are doing is we are matching what the demand actually is.”
Cares noted that the parking ratio for recent developments is closer to .63 spaces per unit than the 1.5 required under current zoning.
“We know that we don’t have to build to the level that has been mandated by outdated zoning codes,” he said.
Christine Madore of the Mass Housing Partnership addressed questions about how reducing parking minimums affect residents, housing costs, and on-street parking.
“Some of the parking requirements create issues, so when we talk day-to-day about what residents feel, there are buildings in communities where they ended up building more parking than they need,” said Madore. “But because the space is so tight … you end up with these very small, narrow, tight parking spaces … the parking is so tight it becomes an issue.”
The parking requirements can also lead to residents who don’t have vehicles feeling like they are paying for parking that they do not need, she said.
“To emphasize, we are not saying that we are not going to build any more parking,” said City Manager Fidel Maltez. “What we are saying is that we are going to let the market dictate how much parking is going to go in.”
The amount of parking will depend on the location and the type of housing that is developed, Maltez said.