Parking to Place: Barriers and Opportunities for Adaptability in New Parking Structure Construction in Los Angeles

This research was completed as part of a UCLA Luskin Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Client Project. The advent of autonomous vehicles (AV) has spurred much discussion as to the implication of AV technology on parking demand in the urban environment. I conducted this research with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning as my client to discover what barriers and opportunities there are for the development of adaptable parking as well as what policies the City could employ to encourage development of adaptable parking structures should parking demand decrease in the future. My research methodology relied on structured interviews as the main source of data as well as other primary and secondary sources. Through my research I found that developers’ business models and timelines have a heavy weight in considerations made for implementing strategies to ensure parking structure adaptability. Another key finding is that low vacancy, high costs of development, and supply constrained markets are more favorable for building adaptable parking structures. Finally, my research finds that prioritizing the form of the parking structure in development standards and shifting emphasis from parking minimums towards the spatial efficiency of the parking layout can help promote adaptability. My recommendations include identifying pilot studies for parking structure adaptability in areas with high development costs and supply constrained markets. I suggest as well that that planners proceed to assess how to create and implement more adaptability in parking structures regardless of current sentiments of developers as they are reactionary and are generally sensitive to short term parking demands