Does L.A. Have Too Much Parking?

Parking, and often free or low-cost parking, is a standard in Los Angeles. However, some experts say that the city has an excess of parking, and it is usurping land that could otherwise be used for a higher-and-better use. In a city plagued by a dearth of available development sites, many owners are re-thinking and even re-purposing parking.

“While abundant free parking seems to go hand in hand with L.A.’s deeply rooted car culture, our sense of parking entitlement comes at a high price. Outdated parking codes increase development costs and negatively impacts residents and users, and ultimately give way to neglected public transportation, higher cost of living, irreversible pollution, and housing shortages,” Jake Radeski, account manager at Beta, tells GlobeSt.com. “Land dedicated to excess parking is a lost opportunity to build something purposeful, and creates wasted space that could be reclaimed to improve our urban landscapes.”

The statistics on parking usage in L.A. are staggering. Radeski notes a report in Journal of American Planning Association that estimates 14% of land in Los Angeles is dedicated to parking—approximately 18.6 million spots for the estimated 5.6 million cars in the county. “Valuable real estate is being used to essentially store cars,” he says. The issue of land availability and over-parking has become more widely discussed in light of California’s growing housing crisis.