In many U.S. cities, developers are required to provide a minimum number of parking spaces with new housing units, dramatically raising rents.
Cars parked along a residential street in Los Angeles.
Jim Dalrymple II
While many factors contribute to drive up the price of rents, parking is among the most significant, according to University of California Los Angeles professor and renowned parking guru Donald Shoup. BuzzFeed News sat down with Shoup during the CityLab 2014 conference in Los Angeles Monday to talk about how parking makes housing more expensive. His point: "It's unfair to have cities where parking is free for cars and housing is expensive for people."
Here's how this works:
Parking doesn't happen by accident, and it doesn't even happen because people necessarily want it (i.e. demand). Instead, cities require developers to include parking spaces with new homes or apartments.
This is an idea known as "parking minimums," and Shoup said they're common across America. A typical rule is two parking spaces per housing unit, but it varies from city to city. Shoup gave the example of L.A.'s Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, saying that current regulations require 2.5 parking spaces per apartment.
An apartment building in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. This building includes underground parking because city rules require multiple spaces per apartment.
Jim Dalrymple II
