Infrastructure and Design Impacts of Autonomous Vehicles

Miller: “Changing parking regulations is a long way off, but it could have a tremendous impact on lowering the cost of building apartments or more affordable homes.”

SAN DIEGO—Parking garages and roads may change to include conversion of parking spaces to usable real estate and the addition of drop-off lanes, along with a variety of other possibilities, once autonomous vehicles become commonly used, Norm Miller, Hahn chair of real estate finance at the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego School of Business, tells GlobeSt.com. Miller recently wrote an article about the implications of autonomous vehicles on real estate and infrastructure. We sat down with him for a chat about the deeper implications of this technological disruption for our industry.

At the time of our interview, Miller said he’d been at a national conference where the topic of autonomous vehicles’ impact on the real estate industry came up a few times. “One of the problems that we have is that even though autonomous vehicles may allow us to shift parking to less expensive areas, regulations for building require extensive parking: the requirements are 1.5 spaces for a two-bedroom unit here, and that’s typical throughout the country. This adds greatly to construction costs for multifamily and condos.”