On Muni and Land Use ? bettermuni

Transit is an integral part of land use. That is why almost every environmental organization considers these issues together. However, the City of San Francisco mostly thinks of these issues separately. The Planning Department considers land use plus sometimes environmental aspects of transit. The SFMTA plans for transit and the County Transportation Authority plans transportation and transit. But nothing these agencies do is final and so transportation and land use finally come together at the Board of Supervisors. But, now the SFMTA is contemplating some new impacts on land use.

The SFMTA already has major impacts on land use: The provision and quality of transit service creates land values for property owners (an apartment house on Third Street is named for the nearby ?T? station) and more and more renters and owners are seeking convenience to transit. The SFMTA owns parking garages and lots which create values for nearby merchants and property owners. They will inherit a downtown hotel because they allowed a developer to use land that was formerly a bus terminal (We can only hope that this property will still be useful after 75 years. The Fairmont is over 100 years old and recently sold.) For years the SFMTA has collected Transit Impact Development Fees (TIDF) on new commercial property because they would have to provide transit service for workers and patrons that came to the property.

Now SFMTA and Planning are considering TIDF for new residential projects. This is an opportunity to consider the impact of fees on land use and transit service. Fees, if they are known before a property is sold, reduce the profits due to land appreciation that a current property owner might desire. If the fees are high enough this might delay the sale of the property. A new developer considering the purchase of property will decrease her offer to reflect the fees to be paid plus interest and profits. Also the dollar cost of the fee may impact the nature of the development. Even so the fee will have only limited impact on construction jobs or permanent employment, because something will be built. I suggest that the SFMTA consider imposing fees that are truly transit first.

By this I mean that Muni should consider that existing transit will find it easier to deal with a few more riders than a few more cars. Therefore the fee on new residential parking should be much higher than the fee on the residence itself. However this is illogical because the planning code generally requires that almost every residence constructed include some parking. A government can?t require something and then tax it (the real estate tax is an exception because it does tax the garage as well as the house). Therefore this new SFMTA venture into land use should include a request for a code change from minimum parking requirements to maximum allowable amounts of parking (hopefully low). A City wide zero requirement would be absolute transit first. However, this process should start by covering the sites discussed below and then expand to cover other dense areas and finally to new single family housing.

The SFMTA currently owns a number of small parcels used as parking lots. All of these lots are in strong commercial areas with good transit. These lots will be suitable for the construction of new residential units. Currently these lots do not produce any real estate tax (a portion of which provides Muni operating funds. A minimum analysis will show that the total annual parking meter fees collected on a lot is less the portion of real estate tax, on land, produced by a nearby lot used as residential. It should be easy for a developer to propose some mid-rise housing without parking and minimum loss of commercial parking due to structure and access requirements. Developers typically complain that the banks will not make loans on residences without parking or less parking. The question must be asked why does SF do business with banks that will not make loans on construction that is good for SF? The neighbors? concerns that new neighbors with no parking will take their currently vested parking spots can be mitigated by denying this particular address any residential parking permits. The need for jobs and housing should move these projects along.

Howard Strassner, May 2012 This essay is being accumulated on a blog:

http://bettermuni.wordpress.com/

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