OK, think hard: who remembers the principle of “double effect?”

It’s the concept that says, hey, if your intentions are good, then it’s OK if you cause harm.

Kind of a rough way of thinking (we can blame St. Thomas Aquinas for this one 

Sadly, the City of San Jose continues to follow this discredited notion when it comes to parking. 

Let me be clear: the intention of reducing parking and protecting the environment is absolutely the right priority. 

But because parking needs vary drastically district to district, the city’s one size fits all solution is a bust and hurts D3.  

That’s because most districts don’t have a parking problem. D10, for example, has an incredible amount of open space for parking for both small businesses and for residents along the front of their houses.

But eliminating parking for Downtown will have two dramatic consequences with far-reaching negative impacts on neighborhoods in D3. First, any neighborhood that is near a new apartment building (permanent supportive housing, affordable housing or new apartment high-rise) that is built without parking, will bear the parking-burden of supporting those new residents who desire to have a car.

For example, The Housing Authority’s new project on Santa Clara and North 14th will leave residents and business owners struggling to find parking. The new structure will be missing a minimum of 400 parking spaces assuming only one car for a three-bedroom apartment. I went and counted the available parking spaces around the neighborhood in a three block radius, and found 47 parking spaces available. That neighborhood will be overwhelmed.

All of San Jose is asking D3 communities to shoulder an incredible burden of parking when new structures offer none.

The second dramatic consequence has to do with the county’s poor mass transit system. The absurd expectation from planners is that if we build new housing without parking–voila! no one will own a car. Nonsense: this will negatively impact those with jobs requiring a commute or those who have more than one job or those who have children in different schools. The single mom who has to make it to two jobs, and drive her kids to two separate schools, will never be able to accomplish her 24 hour day unless she is given 72 hours to do it. 

In summary, we have put the car before the bus. The expectation that new downtown residents will forego a car in downtown San Jose is dreaming. 

If we are forced to build without parking, if neighborhoods are forced to bear the parking-burden of no new parking spaces while adding more vehicles – all new residents who occupy those new dwellings will have to park long distances away from where they live, on the street and in front of other people’s homes and businesses, and everyone in the city is burdened while this problem, like so many others, is kicked down the road again for someone else to deal with.

Here’s my suggestion: we can build new housing apartments that have planned obsolescence for the parking spaces in anticipation that they will not always be parking spaces. There are developers doing this right now, knowing that our mass transit system needs upgrades and improvements to accommodate increased commuter travel.

Our campaign has two more Wednesdays left and we need $5,650 to fund our final push of the campaign.

We are honored to have your vote.