We pulled this one trick out our ass at one of my old firms: we changed the building type the job was filed under to one that req. less parking spaces. Although I would not recommend it, esp. for residential work and our site was in New York City, not L.A.

Is there no way to accomodate an extra 12 spaces on your site? For your market i would say 2 cars per unit is a very reasonable minimum. That should've been accounted for back in the SD and site planning phase.

We are not even in design right now. Just assessing how much this parking restriction reduces the value of the building.

Really no room on existing plot to put more parking in.

If there was some way to say change the situation to 1.5 cars per unit that would be great.

do you own the adjacent property? or is there somewhere adjacent that has pass spots where you can include that in some of your units? i dont know if that actually would work to get around it or not


can you not adjust the building a bit to get some extra spaces?
12 doesnt seem all that many to be that restrictive, but it sounds like the site is smaller anyway, so i could be picturing it wrong in my head

I have no clue what your site looks like and what the program requirements from the client are. Is there no possible way to include all the parking and the building on the site? What about raising the building above the parking lot, or putting a small garage in to the rear of the building to accommodate your tenants?

If you have to find a loophole, I would suggest calling your expediter and/or code consultant.

not sure about the #'s per unit thingy

But I recently (in dwtn Berkeley, CA) had a parking design issue. - we had an existing lot with an undetermined # of spots at various sizes...non of which were legal. The code states that you must replace the existing amount of spaces. We had to dig pretty deep to find records of the parking stripping (as the stripping in the (e) lot is faded and had been restripped a number of times)
We found out the # of real existing spaces was alot less then what we could see on the (e) lot...now mind you we are adding on to this bldg taking away some parking. some parking that the city has counted as real parking spaces. We are adding a motorcycle spot and more bike parking.

-1 way is to eliminate spots ( depending on what city is governing you) is to accomidate motorcycle parking - more bicycle parking

- Another way was to buy parking from a facility up the block - I think it was a 700' radius from your site...but then agauin that was Berkeley so check your own local city codes.

Parking sucks in LA - Good luck

Doesn't make sense to me why you can't split the adjacent property, combine it with yours and rezone if necessary.

Any chance it is contaminated? One viable solution for a brownfield is to cap it with a parking surface. Then you could get the land from them for cheap, not have to dig up the soil and solve your problem. It would also be a non-buildable lot for the city, but ok as a parking lot.

What about signing a 50 year lease with the property next door to rent x amount of spots and then sell rights to those spots? Maybe... maybe not?

What about a parking elevator? Then you could just go up without the ramps. Or you could prop up the building one level and park under neath it.

have any of these ideas been explored?

you havent told us what options you have explored and found didnt work
that might help generate new ideas

Oh just to clarify, the aforementioned building is existing.
It has 24 underground parking spaces
Sorry I didnt put that in the original post.

I'm thinking maybe we might be able to put some spots in front of the building and eliminate the existing planters. And perhaps combine some of the smaller units to lose more parking spaces.

The adjacent lot is under the same owner. So if we bought the building wed get the lot next door.

Another idea is to redo the lot lines so the lot w the building gets a little bigger so we can fit in more parking.

cant you just reserve some of those spots next door for the 12 spaces you would need? if its the same owner, you should be able to work that out no problem

that seems like the easiest solution, unless those other spots are already used up and have no wiggle room

i'm surprised it's only 2 per unit. not requiring any guest parking? are the number of parking spaces required less for a conversion than a new construction?

is the existing parking using the rear yard and have tandem spaces?

also, all guest parking and (don't quote me on this) 50% of the required unit parking can be compact.

Existing underground parking takes up almost the entire lot.
except the front setback which is about 20'.

I'm still looking into trying to figure out a way to use the space next door as just parking but it seems having a parking lot next door would violate the R3-1 zoning. One idea was to combine both the lots and then there would be no violation but the boss said that's not a solution.

I think all parking is tandem.
L.A code says 2 covered spaces per unit so were not giving them more.

Buy the lot next door and merge the Lot with your lot. There is usually no regulations regarding merging lots only subdividing lots.
Code issue should go away because property is under one ownership.
You will have to address setbacks and landscaping issues but I don't
think they can specifically say you can't use the residential parcel for parking if you meet setbacks and lot coverage regulations. Oh and ya, with a merged lot you will end up paying less taxes usually.

you might want to speak with a good land use lawyer and bounce the idea off of him......If he runs away, there is little likelyhood of ever getting it thru the regulation people. If he assures you it is a done deal ask for other specific land deals he has been involved in and then go pull the land records to see if parcels were actually merged inorder to make the deal happen. Oh ya I hate it when Architects have to become Lawyers, or Planners, or Title Search People, but if your young enough I'm sure it will not bother you to put a few miles on the soles of your shoes for a case like this. Oh ya and be sure to tie your Architectural Fee to the Land Deal....like a realtor.

You might see if there is a bus stop near, or if it's a walkable neighborhood, etc, and negotiate to provide less parking based on that.

LA - walkable..............HA!

Sorry Beary, I had to ;-)

the dynamic in l.a. is certainly going to be different than in louisville but...

...what i've done successfully is go directly to the arbiters of these things within the planning and zoning office. if there is merit in what you want to do, i.e., if the project is compelling/desirable for the larger community or if there is a great argument for why you should be held to a different standard due to mitigating circumstances or whatever, they will likely hear you and walk you through a variance process. if there is no reason for what you want except that you want it, they'll let you know that too.

it's not about loopholes and beating the system, it's about working within it for the good of the community.

Whats the cost per sqft for land in this particular area? Look at it from a developer's point of view. If the cost per square foot for the land is very expensive in that location then a underground parking garage that can be maintained by the HOA would provide increased security for the homeowners and a marketing tool for the client may be the answer. Without seeing any drawings, it sounds like you have 3 basic solutions......a variance, no parking, or buying the adjacent lot and using it as parking. However, to help with the zoning and any other overlays that may be present in the area, any proposed parking (above or below ground) should be accompanied by some sort of common space for the community (if size allows) that moves this portion of the project from being just a parking lot to providing a communal gathering point for the neighborhood. The client may be able to recoop the investment in tax breaks, could get it leed cerified, etc......

Parks/public space have solved many a developer's problems.

Whats the cost per sqft for land in this particular area? Look at it from a developer's point of view. If the cost per square foot for the land is very expensive in that location then a underground parking garage that can be maintained by the HOA would provide increased security for the homeowners and a marketing tool for the client may be the answer. Without seeing any drawings, it sounds like you have 3 basic solutions......a variance, no parking, or buying the adjacent lot and using it as parking. However, to help with the zoning and any other overlays that may be present in the area, any proposed parking (above or below ground) should be accompanied by some sort of common space for the community (if size allows) that moves this portion of the project from being just a parking lot to providing a communal gathering point for the neighborhood. The client may be able to recoop the investment in tax breaks, could get it leed cerified, etc......

Parks/public space have solved many a developer's problems.

Whats the cost per sqft for land in this particular area? Look at it from a developer's point of view. If the cost per square foot for the land is very expensive in that location then a underground parking garage that can be maintained by the HOA would provide increased security for the homeowners and a marketing tool for the client may be the answer. Without seeing any drawings, it sounds like you have 3 basic solutions......a variance, no parking, or buying the adjacent lot and using it as parking. However, to help with the zoning and any other overlays that may be present in the area, any proposed parking (above or below ground) should be accompanied by some sort of common space for the community (if size allows) that moves this portion of the project from being just a parking lot to providing a communal gathering point for the neighborhood. The client may be able to recoop the investment in tax breaks, could get it leed cerified, etc......

Parks/public space have solved many a developer's problems.

two covered parking spaces per unit? i really cannot believe that. no wonder l.a. looks the way it does. have the mo' fo's park on the street.

why do you need to add parking when you're converting a building from apartments to condos? doesn't make sense to me.

in Brooklyn I worked on a strip mall that would have required 50% of the lot to be covered by parking. By dividing the lot into three lots, the required number of parking spaces was less than 15 and therefore waived.

stackers?

a year ago my boss and i were working on a condominium project that required 2.5 parking spaces per unit plus a certain number of accessible parking spaces. the amount of units was dictated by the amount of spaces we crammed in the lot and how much cash the developer was willing to spend on parking.


greenlander1, there's a condominium conversion on the north side of washington blvd. and wade st. in mar vista. worth checking out to see how they dealt with parking. i'm sure you'll find a few more precedents around that area.

make the first 2 floors into a parking structure

Make this a LEED project and apply for a variance to reduce parking spaces and instead provide bike racks, show adjacency to public transit, etc. I've sucessfully done this to reduce parking on business occupancies where they wouldn't budge an inch until we provided documentation that the building would be submitted for LEED certification. It's a big deal for cities to have LEED buildings around and they'll bend over backwards for that, can't believe LA would be any different.

it's called a zoning variance. different parts of LA are more prone to grant variances for parking then others, especially if you are near the metro or major bus routes. time for the owner to call a good real estate lawyer.

i saw a presentation by Jonathan Segal this past weekend, in one project he put a lift in the garages so 2 cars could fit in a 1 car garage. I don't think this was really used in every garage, but it satisfied the reviewers to see that it was possible to have 2 'parking spaces' for every unit or whatever.

If there are allocated low income units you could bring the count down

- Does LA have a car share program? In Philadelphia you can get a variance that allows substitute several required parking spaces for one Philly Car Share space.

- Vertical automated storage?

I was thinking along the lines of Architectonica; affordable units can usually bring parking breaks-

yeah L.A. is pretty mad when it comes to the car.
We (I'm working for a developer) are doing another project and the architect sent us the car count of 2.75 per 3 BR unit. I'm not from here and I was like whoah.

Anyhow I came to the decision the best angle/ loophole we could come up with was to redo the lot lines or just combine them. Finally got the boss to understand that. That way the parking area would get absorbed by the lot that has the existing apartment building and we would dodge the 'no parking lots in residential zoning'. Still needs to be approved though. I think the most likely scenario is just combining a small portion of the other lot into the existing one to get the 14 spaces. If we ask to combine both they might think were gonna make 1 big parking lot.

I dont know mcuh about LEED but seems tough since we are going to do the absolute minimum here to convert to condos. Upgrade kitchen, bathroom fixtures, cabinetry, new carpets, etc. Typical developer stuff and sell. Good idea though about LEED.

Affordable units not gonna help us enough here. Plus we're trying to make money not chop into our profit margins.

i seriously doubt zoning would accept stacking cars - but you can always go in and talk it over with them. it's fast paced here in l.a. when you gotta go some where you can't mess around with those car lifts you gotta GO GO GO!

The two ways i've seen this accomplished is you can either make a good case for less parking and go for a contract zone.
Or purchase the parking rights from a nearby lot for the necessary extra spaces.
Or the slightly less ethical way, i've seen developers essentially purchase the rights to parking spots they own in which they are actually used spaces already but not specifically assigned and then after construction not involve the spaces in the sale or rental of the units.

My apologies for the incredible lack of punctuation in that last post and while I'm at it the is/are typo.

The pruchase of external or internal lots is interesting. I'm gonna remember that one.

In chicago you don't have to buy adjacent properties, merely enter into a legal agreement (lease is most common) of a significant enough timeframe (5-20 years, depending on the number of spots, location and what the alderman tells you is acceptable) and viola, you've got off-site parking. Since I am assuming you are changing the zoning to where you would be making the parking requirements more stringent (and thus increasingly violating code) so this is something that can be discussed during the rezoning process you would be going through anyway.

But if you aren't rezoning, then can you use the old "existing, non-conforming" loophole? You're not making it worse, its just staying the same in terms of code compliance.

v.i.f.
n.i.c.
existing non-conforming

All of them make this job tolerable sometimes.

No we arent changing any zoning.
The existing property I think was called non-conforming something.
I cant remember the exact term but the apartment building was short parking spaces if you were to apply current code to it.

I have no idea how that occurred but that's how it is now.

gl,

Look up "existing non-conforming" and its use with regards to the applicable zoning regulations. In Chicago (my big caveat), if you are not adding new units then you are allowed to keep the same parking arrangement - so long as you more or less keep things as they are now. If you are only adding one or two units then it would be time for the developer/owner to run the numbers in terms of cost to buy/lease land for parking versus keeping counts as they are.

I do not know how this is in LA, but you should definitely look into this area of regulation if the number of units stays the same or decreases. You may need to affirm this with some form or variance or letter from an authority, which if that's the case talk to the local city aldermen/representative early after you do a little digging. Also, by keeping the underground parking lot (even if its the ONLY thing you keep) you may save costs there as well, if you design smart.

Lastly, talk to a local New Urbanist or Green Planning Advocacy group. I'm sure they have taken the time and done some of the research already on minimizing parking - they hate parking. They may even know of (or helped achieve) some precedents of reduced parking in LA, and should know the local code much better than I. You don't have to like everything about new urbanism (goodness knows I don't) to have them as an ally when your goals converge.

A quick use of the google brings up the Transportation and Land Use Collaborative of Southern California which if they can't help looks like they can at least point you in the right direction.

Good luck!