The Bloomberg administration has proposed changes in off-street parking rules that would no longer require older apartment buildings in Manhattan to provide parking spaces for residents.
All large apartment complexes constructed before 1982 had been required to provide some parking for residents.
Up until that year, building owners in the so-called Manhattan Core — below 96th Street on the East Side and 110th Street on the West — had been mandated to provide parking for 40 percent of all residential units for building lots more than 15,000 square feet and 20 percent for lots between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet. That created two classes of buildings — those built before ’82, which had to provide parking, and those built afterward, which did not.
There have been examples of building owners wanting to eliminate parking lots to make way for affordable housing — and the proposal would facilitate that process by easing or eliminating requirements.
An advocacy group representing more than 2,000 co-ops and condos backs the concept.
“It’s an intriguing idea. We want to have as much flexibility as possible to govern our buildings. This proposal increases flexibility for our buildings,” said Mary Rothman, executive director of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums.
Separately, the city Planning Department initiative would also encourage automated parking facilities that vertically “stack” cars, as is done in Japan and Europe. There are now two such computer-controlled systems in the Manhattan Core.
“Automated garages take up less spaces than traditional garages and there are no emissions because car engines are not running,” a planning document says.
The plan also would provide greater flexibility to set aside more public garage space to rental cars — up to 40 percent.
“Car ownership among Manhattan Core residents is relatively low — 23 percent of households own a car compared to 46 percent citywide, and only a small share of households commute to work by car,” the plan states.
“The Manhattan Core is a prime location for car rental and share vehicles (Zip cars, for example), which contribute to the low car-ownership rate, encourage transit use and reduce the need for off-street parking.”
Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden said the plan, which requires extensive community public input before enactment, is aimed at both providing “the right amount of parking” and “alternatives to owning a car” in the Manhattan Core.