Housing Without Street Parking: Implemented

July 23rd, 2021
housing, policy
In 2017, I wrote:
What if, in places like Somerville where all parking is already by-permit-only, we added a new category of housing unit, one that didn't come with any rights to street parking?
It turns out this was included in the 2019 zoning overhaul (I missed this among all the other great changes):
11.2.7: On-Street Parking in Transit Areas
  1. Upon the adoption of an official policy limiting on-street residential parking permits in transit areas, the review boards shall require the following as a condition(s) of any discretionary or administrative permit:
    1. that the applicant complete and file formal acknowledgment that all dwelling unit(s) are ineligible to participate in the Somerville Residential Permit Parking program with the with the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds or Land court prior to the issuance of a building permit;
    2. that all dwelling units are advertised as ineligible to participate in the Somerville Residential Permit Parking program; and
    3. that all buyers grantees, lessees, renters, or tenants are informed that all dwelling unit(s) is ineligible to participate in the Somerville Residential Permit Parking program.
By transit area they mean everything within half a mile from a subway stop, which with the Green Line makes most of the city:

I'm very excited to see this! While housing without parking is not what everyone wants or needs, this change (a) makes it an option for people who do want it and (b) should help reduce opposition to construction.

Referenced in: How Many Parking Permits?

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

I have a baby

I am pleased to announce the existence of the newest and smallest effective altruist, Seretse Benjamin Brennan.

via Thing of Things November 2, 2026

“We should be more ambitious with the software we build”

Since early this year, Michael Malis (of pgrust) has been showing me interesting things he's done and saying [W]e should be more ambitious1 with the software we build There is, understandably, a lot of skepticism about projects like pgrust because there…

via Posts on October 24, 2026

Was the HuggingFace hacking incident scheming?

In July 2026, internal OpenAI agents hacked HuggingFace (HF) in order to figure out how their evaluation grader works. This involved a thousand agents coordinating on an improvised message board to carry out an elaborate sequence of exploits. A later grou…

via Victoria Krakovna October 18, 2026

more     (via openring)