Parking needs to be ‘reimagined,’ but the county plan needs work
By Donna Jacobson
Fairfax County staff is working on a proposed parking amendment to the Zoning Ordinance, which would set reduced minimum parking requirements (MPRs) for new and renovated developments.
The proposed parking amendment should be available at the end of October on the Parking Reimagined website.
The Planning Commission is expected to have public hearings on the amendment in January 2023, and the Board of Supervisors is expected to follow suit in February.
Donald Shoup, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, was the first to come up with the theory of reducing minimum parking requirements (MPRs). His theory was first applied in the low-income areas of Los Angeles, where MPRs were preventing the building of adequate low-income housing.
Reductions in MPRs have been especially helpful in areas with well-established mass transportation and have allowed the introduction of additional green spaces and trees in areas that had previously been large, impervious parking lots.
More green spaces needed
Unfortunately, Fairfax County’s approach to reimagining parking appears to have a few problems. First, county staff wants to reduce the minimum parking requirements, but they don’t want to pair the reduction with the addition of any green spaces or trees.
Without this required pairing, reducing MPRs will only lead to a reduction in required parking and an increase in density.
County staff stated that once the proposed parking amendment is completed, they will start evaluating the Zoning Ordinance provisions on parking lot landscaping (Article 5108.5).
They also stated they hope their review of Article 5108.5 leads to more solar canopies over parking lots. While solar canopies are a worthwhile endeavor, they do not offer the same benefits as additional green spaces and trees.
Article 5108.5 requires that any parking lot containing 20 or more spaces must include interior landscaping covering a minimum of 5 percent of the total area of the parking lot. However, if parking areas are reduced, then the required landscaping would also be reduced.
Related story: County to reduce parking requirements
With the addition of more buildings, the county could end up allowing more impervious surfaces and requiring fewer green spaces and trees than it currently does.
More impervious surfaces will worsen the heat island effect. It is extremely difficult to develop walkable communities when the asphalt temperature in areas such as Annandale has been recorded as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, the heat island effect serves to drive up the temperature inside homes and businesses, which increases energy costs.
NASA scientists have found that an effective mitigation strategy for heat islands is simply planting trees. Each tree not only cools its immediate area, but also casts shade onto nearby buildings.
Unrelated to transit hubs
Second, staff is proposing percentage decreases in parking requirements based on zoning. For instance, all revitalization districts are currently proposed to receive a 20 percent reduction in parking requirements for new and renovated developments.
Applying a straight percentage countywide doesn’t seem to be an effective methodology for determining MPRs. A better measure would be to use the distance from the development to a transit station, since the closer a development is to a transit station, the less dependent the residents will be on vehicles.
Literature related to parking reductions states that the best places to implement a reduction in residential parking requirements are areas that are transportation hubs.
The Annandale Commercial Revitalization District (CRD) is not a transportation hub, nor does it have the transportation infrastructure in place that would enable residents to exist without a vehicle. Reducing parking requirements in multifamily dwellings would only result in more on-street parking in surrounding communities, which already suffer from this problem.
Also, increasing density in the Annandale CRD, would be an environmentally unfriendly move and would increase traffic levels. This outcome is contrary to the county’s own commitment to reducing emissions.
The greener and more practical solution would be to tie reductions in minimum parking requirements and any increase in density levels to the availability of public transportation.
Lack of equity
Finally, the proposed parking amendment has an issue with equity. The county states that mixed-use developments would be great because residents can have shops and recreation facilities in their community and not need a vehicle, because they won’t have to drive anywhere.
That’s great, except if a mixed-use development with significant parking reductions is built in a low-income area, are we not segregating low-income residents? Also, how would these residents fare if the businesses in this development do not offer quality goods and services?
The process of unbundling parking, a process in which parking facilities are rented or sold separately from a building, will end up increasing the cost of living for residents and would have the most negative effect on low-income residents.
Also, the use of separate parking facilities will continue to increase in costs, unlike parking areas that are associated with multifamily dwellings.
I do think Fairfax County needs to reimagine parking. However, changes to parking requirements need to be made in a way that benefits residents, businesses, and the environment.
The goal of reimagining parking should be to reduce parking requirements in a way that creates livable communities for everyone.
If you are concerned about the proposed parking amendment, contact the Planning Commission, [email protected], and the Board of Supervisors, [email protected]. Request your messages be distributed to all members of the Planning Commission and board.
Donna Jacobson is president of the Lafayette Village Community Association in Annandale.
18 responses to “Parking needs to be ‘reimagined,’ but the county plan needs work”
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I used to dismiss those who claimed the Fairfax BoS were beholden to property developers.
After reading this article, I can’t do it anymore.
If the BoS are going to reduce minimum parking requirements (MPRs) without taking into account how close a location is to high-quality, safe, reliable, mass transit, then this initiative is nothing more than a giveaway to developers.
More density, lower quality of life for the citizens of Fairfax County.
How about FIRST developing mass transit systems, THEN reducing MPRs near those mass transit hubs?
That would take common sense, which is poorly lacking apparently.
Mass transit is inefficient, dirty and disgusting. It’s loud and unsightly. It will make crime spike. Limiting parking sounds good to me. My driveway is huge.
The Metro’s silver, blue, orange, and yellow Line trains are efficient and clean.
They are quiet and are either unground or preferable to elevated roadway or congested roads filled with pedestrian killing motor vehicles; most of them spewing environmentally disastrous carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Especially before the COVID pandemic and the historic shift to remote work, the Metro allowed the population density of the Metro DC area to greatly increase while limiting (but it could not totally prevent) suburban sprawl, rush hour traffic congestion, and gridlock.
As demonstrated by the experience of Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, and Fairfax County; the Metro, and other forms of high quality mass transit reduces crime by bringing in high quality mixed-use development which brings in affluent residents and visitors who demand (along with the property developers who have invested $billions in new developments) and receive from their elected officials excellent law enforcement (and private security, if necessary) to ensure their safety.
Your comment, with your gloating about your owning a “huge” driveway, reeks of the elitist mentality, “I got mine, all you other losers who don’t have huge driveways like me can pound sand.” It’s extremely off putting, though perhaps it appeals to two-faced elected officials who talk a good game about “equity” but NEVER deliver.
After reading your comment, I’m convinced Fairfax County needs to retroactively enforce (no grandfathering) countywide a two vehicle limit for the size of the driveway and/or garage space for each private residence in the county to two cars/trucks; the FCPD should be authorized to ticket, and heavily fine the owner of any private residence who permits more than two vehicles on their property at any time (day or night); and to tow away, impound; and, if necessary, confiscate the vehicles, sell them, and keep the proceeds, of homeowners who repeatedly fail to comply with this common sense pedestrian and environmental safety law.
This policy, much more than the irrational policy under consideration, by removing many of the excess vehicles off the streets of Fairfax County, would do much more to prevent the growing crisis of needless pedestrian deaths and significantly reduce Fairfax County’s carbon footprint,
Most important of all, this policy would promote equity, which the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors give a ton of lip service to, but fail to deliver because they are gutless and beholden to special interests; because it would ensure elitists who brag about the size of their driveway are part of the solution rather than mocking those young couples starting out who would be forced to share one car, drive around hours to find on the street parking, pay excessive amounts to rent a private parking space, or walk a mile or more to get to mass transit to get to their work and to other locations they need to go.
Hey look, we both commented at 824 pm. Comment buddies!!
Are you serious! Tag cars in driveways on personal property. I live in a neighborhood where zoning laws aren’t especially enforced meaning lots of people with lots of cars living in small houses. If these folks would make better use of their driveways (meaning parking more than your suggested 2 cars) instead of lining narrow streets with their cars it might make it easier to drive through the area. God forbid there’s a life-threatening emergency. Emergency vehicles will be slowed needing to weave their way through the streets.
I have a way to save the environment, create jobs, house the homeless, protect the environment, advance equity, and get rich — in a way that the arborist-climatologists at NASA will appreciate.
Goes like this: Put together a group of investors from comments section of Annandale Today to pool our space bux and buy teardowns at auction. We’ll build carbon-neutral parking garages with oak trees on top.
Target market is low income people who will soon have their parking reimagined. The county will subsidize our venture because we’ll 1) allow homeless to pitch tents on one of the floors, and 2) put in a EV charging station. Who’s with me?
You are so off base. If you think the subway cars are clean, I’d hate to see your house. I rode on them for years because I had to. I’d rather walk than get on one ever again. The whole idea of limiting vehicles on private property is just plain wrong so bag that proposal. There’s no equity in a proposal to confiscate private property. Letting developers get away with putting less spaces per dwelling only increases their profits and isolates people into crowded areas with limited options. Sometimes you just have to put the brakes on development and force people to spread out. We need green spaces for mental and physical health, and we need trees to help clean the air. If you want solar – then use the roofs of which there are plenty. Look into creating wooded, naturalized park areas and open air recreation facilities on large constructed decks over heavily travelled areas or over parking areas, much like the big migration bridges built out West. Parking and traffic are self-limiting. When it becomes difficult to drive and park somewhere, people avoid it like the plague. I won’t go near DC or Georgetown anymore and give Alexandria a wide berth on crowded days.
These arguments against the county’s plan for minimum parking requirements are stretched pretty thin. You state that there is no required green space for reimagined parking, but that is not entirely true. The county wants to couple this with initiatives that increase green space in the landscape. Namely, the usage of “complete street design”. This type of design increases foliage in the walkable street environment and has been outlined in Annandale’s revitalization plan. So it’s not like trees aren’t going to be planted.
The strongest argument here is in regards to transit hubs, and the scope of this issue is far beyond the arguments made against density and implied inequity. If the county wants to move towards a more dense, less auto-oriented, and environmentally friendly landscape (which they should, and at least they are trying to make somewhat of an effort to do so), then they need to approach this holistically. And unfortunately this seems to be impossible, due to a mix of hellish bureaucracy and NIMBYism.
If we want to reduce surface parking (again, which we should), then we need to have a legitimate system of alternative transportation in place. Without a comprehensive transit system in place all of the county’s objectives go out the window. There must be both carrots and sticks. While reducing parking is a pretty good stick, we need to incentivize alternative modes of transportation in conjunction with this. We are doing an abysmal job of doing this, if anything we are delegitimizing public transportation.
Here is an example of the disjointed nature of our planning; the Mosaic district. This is a revitalized area that is a blueprint to the future of Fairfax County. It’s “close” to Dunn-Loring station. If one does not want to walk they can take the ridiculous self-driving shuttle to-and-from Mosaic. But the bigger problem here is that it connects to a transit system that is in itself very limited, in terms of both where it goes and how frequent the trains are. Not to mention unreliable. Because the majority of the county is not accessible via metro, the vast majority of people will never use transit to go to Mosaic. This has created a space with towering parking garages and presents an absolute traffic nightmare, rendering the purpose of this type of design obsolete.
I understand why the county wants to set reduced minimum parking requirements as a part of their greater vision for the future. There are aspects of your argument that are very legitimate, particularly when it comes to the efficacy of these policies. If they are all taken piecemeal, take years upon years to complete, and are not part of a sweeping overall shift in priority, then what is the point of all this? Reducing capacity for cars without providing a legitimate alternative is asking for trouble.
Build rapid transit in Fairfax County. Build transit-oriented design in Fairfax County.
I agree with a lot of your points, but it makes sense to me to reduce parking lots in order to make public transit more effective and attractive. To me I don’t see a big difference in the order we do this. I would love to fund a reliable public transport system now but I see that changing slowly if we don’t take immediate steps to reduce minimum parking lots and increase density to serve more people.
WMATA loses millions a year and has a horrendous reliability rating. I too would like reliable mass transit, but WMATA isn’t the way to go imo
I appreciate Donna for staying engaged with this County initiative. While ‘reimagining’ parking won’t fix the parking woes of existing townhome or residential communities (it won’t fix mine), we should change parking requirements. I think the current proposal works. All the arguments are worth having the discussion but think they are stretched.
In viewing this with an equity lens, I think unbundling parking does make a difference. Rents are high and most people pay more than 30 percent on monthly income on rent. We should be bringing new development for people not cars. Not everyone has a car and today with the remote work being a thing not everyone needs that second (or third) car.
There is no silver bullet and having an argument to dismiss this by saying that the county is reducing parking at the expense of not increasing open space and trees is completely false. Fairfax County is taking a steps to realize the recommendations from CECAP which include increasing the tree canopy. I’m sure the county is looking at Annandale and parts of Richmond Hwy corridor where more tree canopy is welcomed. The county also has a Tree Commission and a Urban Forestry dept that does excellent work.
I would appreciate if future posts that can be are categorized as opinion posts (I see them from time to time) and respect Donna for taking the time to share her thoughts with us. I welcome them as I learn different perspectives on matters that we can weigh on.
Well, parking is reimagined every day along Americana Drive and on streets by complexes where people share space because they can’t afford their own living space. This effort will NOT deal with that little gem, it is only to grant developers a break on providing ample parking for everyone. I agree we have too much asphalt and I agree we need more green space, not just “landscaping”, but then I don’t think we should be urbanizing every square inch of Fairfax County either. I think every case should be looked at individually rather than an overarching policy for every development into the future. I think our focus should be on redevelopment since we have empty office buildings and retail everywhere in this county. They don’t pay taxes because there are no tenants, but they sit at the top of an REIT portfolio as an asset they put their own value on and we get stuck paying for infrastructure to service these sites. I’m tired of giving developers breaks when they won’t consider “redevelopment” because there is not enough money in it for them. Our natural resources are limited and being strained every day and the people who care the least are in charge.
I can see where you are coming from but I think increasing density just allows for more greenspace and the very least it builds dense and community locations that you can walk to and actually encourages green landscapes around it so you can go to on foot and not in the disconnected and expensive comforts of your car. Building more dense areas should be used to free up other space for greenery.
“The county states that mixed-use developments would be great because residents can have shops and recreation facilities in their community and not need a vehicle, because they won’t have to drive anywhere.” The county still hopes that by wishing it to be true, it will be true.
Cars are a fact of life. The Metro does not provide adequate access so that cars can be eliminated. In London or New York, the subway covers most areas, but not in this area. Does the county actually think that we will spend two hours (each way) taking buses and Metro when we want to go to Tysons Corner to shop? You can make communities a little more self sufficient, but people are not going to give up their traveling to eat our, shop, go to work, etc.
So by cutting down parking, the county just will make it more of a nightmare for people. Over 40 years ago, when we moved here, there were few cars parked on the street in our neighborhood. Now, it is difficult to navigate down our streets because of the excess cars and trucks because of the increase in the numbers of people living in houses nearby.
It would be nice if the county would recognize reality, but they continue to have a dream that is unsustainable.
On this same note, the county had its head up its own arse over 40 years ago when you moved here. They refused to believe or just didn’t care that this area would grow the way that it has, and is still continuing to grow.
They neglected any critical planning and infrastructure development that could help create sensible transportation. So now we are stuck with urban demographics in a suburban landscape; cars piled up on residential streets and stifling traffic congestion every day of the week.
While there is no turning back the clock, we need to take the necessary steps to prevent this type of carelessness in the future. It’s no use to try to fight density. Not only is our current landscape an incongruent mess, but we should expect continued growth here. We need to plan our environment accordingly.
Build rapid transit in Fairfax County. Build transit-oriented development in Fairfax County.
Well, there is this:
https://cardinalnews.org/2022/08/29/more-people-are-moving-out-of-northern-virginia-than-are-moving-in/
Losing all the rich people to Florida. I am a refugee from California who was fleeing the people who ultimately followed me here. Off to Florida, or maybe the desert.
FLORDUH ain’t cheap. Wait til you get your tax bill and your 4 insurance bills. With the hurricane that just decimated FLORDUH., Floridiots can expect huge increases in insurance premiums. Insurance is so bad in FLORDUH that most people can’t afford private insurance and flock to the State pool which is at the edge of bankruptcy. Good luck on your move