Former Mayor Charlie Hales was for, against, and then for allowing apartments to be built without parking, which squeezes street space. Near Division, 224 apartments in 13 blocks were designed without parking, causing freak-outs. In already-crowded Slabtown, a 123-unit pair of apartment buildings called the Tess O'Brien was not required to have parking. Meanwhile, parking meters have been plunked down in Nob Hill and Slabtown and on the central eastside—while people in Northwest got so fed up with how hard it was to park they voted this month to raise their own annual parking permit fees to $180, hoping fewer people would store their cars there.