Eric Kehoe

Location, location, location? Or parking, parking, parking?

The Detroit Saturday Night Building, a historic structure on Fort Street that housed the Saturday Night newspaper, is slated for demolition. Earlier this month, Detroit City Council voted to take it down, on the recommendation of the Duggan administration. The rationale was that demolishing the building for a handful of parking spaces would help the nearby Fort Shelby sell more condos, repaying the developer’s loan to the city’s pension fund.

No one wants to hurt pensioners any further. We should do whatever it takes to help them. But why would condominiums with literally hundreds of adjacent parking spaces need to tear down yet another building for a few more? Wouldn’t a redeveloped building provide more revenue to pay back the pension fund? Wouldn’t selling the building to a developer provide revenue?

With Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s push to remove blight citywide, it’s worth considering downtown Detroit in the equation. Surface parking is everywhere — taking up 40% of downtown, according to a 2013 study — and that hobbles Detroit's redevelopment.

Besides a few hours per week dedicated to large events, one can find blocks of vacant lots in a part of Detroit that should be known for vibrancy and activity. World class cities don’t use land for surface parking. Visitors don’t travel to New York or London because parking is easily available. Residents don’t live in Paris or Chicago to be near empty lots. Yet in Detroit, we have more parking now than in any other time in the city’s history.

Parking lots are also a health and safety issue. On hot days they act as heat islands, increasing energy consumption and heat-related illness. On rainy days they cause stormwater runoff, polluting our watershed and taxing our sewer system. Nearly every hour they are devoid of people, providing opportunities for crime.

Parking hurts affordable housing, too. Thanks to mandatory parking requirements, the cost of construction goes up, passing costs onto tenants.

Surface parking ultimately hurts Detroit and Detroiters. We think it’s time for this trend to reverse.

More:Historic Detroit Saturday Night building to be razed to for condo parking

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Detroiters for Parking Reform is a coalition of organizations and concerned citizens seeking changes to the way Detroit approaches parking. We have a plan for smart parking management that minimizes underused surface lots, instead building density and equity. In our vision, parking lots don’t disappear, but are one small part of a larger mobility solution.

What does smart parking management look like?

To start, we call on the Mayor and City Council to create a moratorium on all new commercial surface parking in greater downtown. Similar to the moratorium the mayor established regarding scrapyards at the beginning of this year, this new parking moratorium would immediately end the threat of surface lots in an area of Detroit that should be known for density.

Next, the city needs to conduct a parking census to understand how and when parking is utilized, establishing better parking management practices.

Just like understanding downtown’s market for office space, we need to understand how we use the parking we currently have before we can seriously address the problem of oversupply.

Our preliminary data show more parking isn’t the solution, but rather better management of the parking we currently have. At this stage, several steps could be taken.

The first step is to eliminate all parking requirements for new development. No more zoning that requires two parking spaces per religious parsonage, or one parking space for every stadium seat, both of which are actual requirements today. This doesn’t mean that developers can’t build parking, just that there should be more flexibility to what is built.

We should also create dynamic pricing at street parking meters. Dynamic pricing means the rate fluctuates depending on supply and demand. Research shows that dynamic pricing improves parking availability and reduces congestion caused by drivers hovering for parking spots. Citywide, we could use the revenue from metered parking to go directly into neighborhood improvements, like using Livernois Avenue parking meters to improve the business districts in northwest Detroit.

We should reimagine parking lots as one small piece of a larger, more equitable mobility plan. A quarter of Detroiters do not have a car, and our approach should reflect that. For example, new parking structures could be required to include free transit passes, preferred parking for carpools, or on-site bike storage facilities as part of their development.

Finally, this also means passing comprehensive regional transit funding. A regional transit plan will give all metro Detroiters options when it comes to mobility, reducing the need for car dependency.

Implementing these ideas will take time. But until we reimagine how we park, surface lots will continue to blight downtown Detroit. We ask other organizations and community members to join our coalition. Help create a Detroit built for mobility, sustainability and equity. A Detroit built for people, not cars.

Eric Kehoe is a co-founder of Detroiters for Parking Reform and former president of Preservation Detroit.