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Candid- t1_itt4nle wrote

Reply to comment by fun_guy02142 in Cambridge completely eliminated parking minimums yesterday!! by RealBurhanAzeem

Have you tried to park on the street in Cambridge recently? Time-value-of-money, you’ll spend more than $150/month trying to find street parking for your car.

Having a car isn’t a function of location. It is a function of life. If you have a job that requires you work from different locations every day, if you have kids, if you are old… People won’t stop needing cars.

This will make Cambridge more congested, harder to find parking, and drive out all but a few very targeted demographics.

Honestly, it feels like a few wealthy developers were able to fast-sell a young, single male to do something self-serving without thinking of the long-term repercussions.

I own in Cambridge (lives here 10 years) and I work in Boston. While I take the T to work every day, I have a car and parking, for which I am grateful, because I also have kids who have sports activities, trips to the zoo or the science museums, or just to the Fells for a day hike. We eat at local restaurants that we can walk to but we will also drive to places in the city that aren’t on the red or green lines.

I would think that Cambridge would want to encourage families like mine to want to put down roots in the city. This change does the opposite. I understand that all laws aren’t supposed to benefit one group or another but I don’t see how the only ones who benefit from this really are the real estate developers that can now flip a property that was previously not workable and then walk away from the problem they created.

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TheFoun t1_ittt9qa wrote

Nobody is forcing you to live somewhere without parking, and not everyone wants to own a car.

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Candid- t1_ituewlr wrote

Nobody is forcing you to spend what it costs to live in Cambridge, and nobody should be making it easier for you to live here just because you yell the loudest.

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IntelligentCicada363 t1_ituipcr wrote

Weird because last time I checked this law was passed by an elected city council with a near unanimous vote.

I’m sorry you think building more homes for folks who don’t want cars or parking is so evil. I disagree.

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Candid- t1_itwqu39 wrote

I wish you wouldn’t jump to such extremes. It makes people infer something that I am not saying. It isn’t evil, it just has an externality that no one is talking about, it benefits wealthy developers, and isn’t guaranteed to drive the intended results.

Existing landlords won’t drop rent because of this, new landlords will continue to charge market rates, and new owners will still have cars without a new place to park them.

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IntelligentCicada363 t1_ity49rv wrote

People aren’t dumb. Most people sell their car when they to move to NYC. You keep assuming that only people who own cars will move here but that is factually untrue.

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Candid- t1_itz83y0 wrote

Factually, 2/3 of households in Cambridge own cars. There is nothing to indicate that the people who move into these houses won’t follow a similar ratio. Even if only 1/3 have cars, it still means more cars than we currently have on the streets. In no scenario does this result in fewer cars in Cambridge.

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TheFoun t1_itufbhc wrote

true! if you don't want to live somewhere, don't, exactly as I said before

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Candid- t1_itwr8pt wrote

Well, technically I spent a lot of money to live somewhere based on what it had to offer. No one is forcing me to live here, true, but someone did just “take” a piece of the value I thought I was purchasing.

I’m not saying this was an evil thing, I’m just saying I have a right to be frustrated by the change since the beneficiaries of this aren’t residents like me - they are property developers, landlords, and current non-residents.

Edit: spelling

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TheFoun t1_ityae03 wrote

I see your point, but it's very likely that businesses you may want to visit will still have enough parking, even if there isn't a legal minimum.

For housing without parking, that probably doesn't really affect you, but it may help make some housing cheaper, which isn't bad.

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Candid- t1_itz79jf wrote

I think a lot of the new housing will bring people who actually do have cars and they will just depend on the streets to park them. That will put pressure on everyone already here because of the free parking that Cambridge offers anyone considered a resident.

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crawling-alreadygirl t1_ituj5iq wrote

> have a car and parking, for which I am grateful, because I also have kids who have sports activities, trips to the zoo or the science museums, or just to the Fells for a day hike.

If you had better infrastructure, you wouldn't need a car for those activities.

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Candid- t1_itwptua wrote

I completely agree.

Cart before horse, taking away parking requirements before fixing infrastructure.

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crawling-alreadygirl t1_itx399y wrote

Taking away parking requirements frees up space for other infrastructure improvements and allows for denser, more walkable new construction.

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