Parking, Streets, and Density

Many planners reference the idea that 1/3 of any built community is usually dedicated towards cars (streets, surface parking, decks, and access ways). This paper’s authors challenge that idea, but they also reveal some other interesting facts. For instance, Dallas had the lowest percentage of streets and parking as part of its overall land use but also had a higher amount of streets per capita (a result of low density). New York City, on the other extreme, had the HIGHEST percentage of its land dedicated to streets and parking but the lowest amount of street area per capita. I wonder what percentage of Trenton is dedicated to parking, and how that affects the remaining, ratable portion of the City…

What is also relevant is the idea that mandated parking spaces (as part of a zoning ordinance) “tacitly subsidizes automobile ownership”. It seems that we only notice parking when it is not there- it is an entitlement that most of us expect. I am also reminded that our own ordinance includes language that surface parking lots help to define an “area in need of redevelopment”. While parking spaces and streets are an essential part of any urban fabric, they also represent a burden for a municipality (it must maintain them). Since Trenton has an 18th and 19th century street grid (a dense grid), and because the downtown core is a relatively low density, Trenton is burdened by a double wammy of a high% of land dedicated to streets, but with a relatively low urban fabric and ratable base. We have the worst of both worlds.

Abstract remedies are: 1: either reduce the amounts of streets (not gonna happen) and land dedicated to parking (a.k.a. build expensive parking decks at $20,000 per space), or 2: increase development density and ratables to be more proportionate with the street network.

I remember Councilwoman Lartigue rightly expressed her frustration at last week’s Council Meeting regarding the amount of non-ratables in the city, but I think that the best way out is to look up. Our downtown core needs a vertical growth spurt- current modes of thinking about quaint 3-6 story multi-use developments are most likely out of scale with the amount of ratables needed to sustain our city without additional aid. The big question is, how can Trenton attract this kind of development, and how dense is too dense?

Who owns the tax hike?

I’ve never considered leaving Trenton until the water works petition passed. For the first time in 10 years, I started to think of other options in terms of where I should live. The proposed tax hike will kill any hopes at continued revitalization in the near future and will have a devastating effect on the few viable and successful neighborhoods within the city. Without being a real estate expert, but gauging what happened in the early 1990’s in Chambersburg, its safe to say that rising tax rates will only increase the abandoned housing stock, lower the overall housing prices in the city, reduce equity on a monumental scale (and ratables), and will form the basis for a new wave of flight from the city. I, for one, would want to get out before the prices bottom out.

While I can appreciate the diversity of political opinions that have produced this stalemate, I cannot understand why anyone would force the City into the role of raising taxes at this scale. If the leaders of the petition want to punish Mayor Palmer in some way, they should not make the rest of the City suffer as well. I question the motivation of anyone who has led this process down a path so extreme, that it will result in even more hardship on our already challenged City.

If the argument is that the finances of the City will be in the same bad shape in a couple of years, then I argue that if anything, the water sale has bought us time to negotiate hard with the State. The State is responsible for a sizeable portion of Trenton’s land mass, and much of it in the downtown and waterfront is classified as blighted by the City’s own standards for determining redevelopment areas (namely surface parking). With the City in such dire financial shape, its time to force the State to consolidate parking, increase its PILOT, or come to some other yet unknown agreement with the City so that the residents and business owners are not overburdened by an unfair and unequal tax. Is it a sustainable way to keep the budget? No. But it may get us through this terrifying recession.

52%

According to the City's proposed budget, 52% of Trenton is not taxable. We as a city are home to non-profits, churches, Federal State County and City facilities, major right of ways, parks, and schools. I attempted a cheesy photoshop job with rough outlines on non-taxable land. Its an interesting (if imperfect) diagram that reveals how the city is sliced up from a ratable standpoint. The areas with the highest inherent value are also the areas with the highest concentration of non-ratables (the waterfront, the most urban downtown core, major transportation corridors).

And just to hammer the point home of how much land is not utilized, I’ve attached cheesy photoshop job #2 which shows the amount of land (roughly 3.75 square miles) which is not being taxed. Its the size of lower Manhattan. Its at the same scale as Trenton to help give you an idea of the relative big-ness of our city and the impact of all of this un-ratable land mass.

My knee jerk reaction is that we as a city should be looking at ways to reclaim as much of this land as possible...