Parking policy reform may be part of PlaNYC 2.0; it would be a bit late for Atlantic Yards

Streetsblog reports:

Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith dropped an intriguing hint this afternoon about the upcoming revision of New York City’s long-term sustainability plan. “We are looking at parking as part of @PlaNYC 2.0,” he tweeted.

Now, there’s a lot that needs to happen between today and Earth Day 2011, when the update is due. “Looking at” parking needs to become acting on it, and “parking” needs to include big changes to both on- and off-street parking. Even so, with the exclusion of parking policy being one of the great holes in the original PlaNYC, this could signal a breakthrough.

The AY angle

Indeed, as I wrote 12/24/07, in a post headlined PlaNYC 1950: why parking shouldn't be required at apartment projects like Atlantic Yards:

Mayor Mike Bloomberg's much-praised PlaNYC 2030 contains a glaring omission, a failure to address the antiquated anti-urban policy that mandates parking attached to new residential developments outside Manhattan, even when such developments, like Atlantic Yards, are justified precisely because they're located near transit hubs.

Note that about 2500 spaces are planned to support the 6430 apartments, while 1100 are to support the arena.

Should reforms go through, it's likely they would be enacted well before most if not all of the apartment parking would come online for Atlantic Yards.

However, the state overrode city zoning, so even if the PlaNYC policy became retroactive, it's not likely it would impact Atlantic Yards--unless the developer, a governance entity, and local officials agreed to change policy voluntarily.