Via Harding Steel
Today at my firm, I came across an odd story that I found too humorous not to share. Normally in the discussion of reducing parking in a development, we speak of the costs of car ownership, the impact on the environment, the burden on our roads, and the actual physical cost of building more stalls. A typical construction cost estimate for a parking spot is somewhere between $2000 for a surface spot, or up to $50,000 for a structure.
In one of our residential projects, we wanted to use a car stacker to fit two cars in place of one. Because we are limited to one garage door and curb cut, this would dramatically reduce the garage area without resorting to tandem parking. In fact, two cars would fit in a space of about 300 square feet.
The hitch is that the Fire Department requires car stackers to be fire sprinklered. In this region of town, a sprinkler requires water supply from a 4″ pipe, but the service in the street is only 2″. Plan B is to double the fire-rating of the garage (more material and labor costs only) and extend the 2″ pipe with 2 meters to supply domestic water and sprinkler water.
When that seemed overwhelmingly costly, we reanalyzed the need for the additional parking. It comes out like this:
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Via Harding Steel
Retaining Wall for below grade storage of car: $30,000.
- Additional piers for retaining wall: $30,000.
- Additional excavation and debris removal for pit: $5,000
- Sprinkler System: $15,000
- Extra meter for sprinkler supply: $2,000
- Extending pipe from street, including repaving: $10,000
- Extra costs for 2-hour fire rating: $5,000
- Car Stacker itself: $10,000
Total cost – approximately $110,000 just for one more parking spot in a detached residential zone. Not to mention, there is plenty of on street parking right next door.
The debate now begins; is it good to make parking more expensive, or are we just making the typical house that much more expensive and unafordable?
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Ian Turner on 06.04.2009
So, was this a case where the second spot was required by zoning regulations, or where the client wanted a second spot and was willing to shell out $100k to get it?
Streetsblog » Today’s Headlines on 06.04.2009
[...] One Example of How Parking Requirements Make Housing More Expensive (SF TOD) [...]