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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   2667 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 12, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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My suspicion is that the address rules are to prevent people from renting them out. In recent years, the armchair urbanists have gotten goopy about ADUs, acting like they're some panacea to the housing problem. They're usually prohibited in most subdivisions, but they've tried to make a case for them by claiming that it's so your mother-in-law doesn't have to go into assisted living or whatever. Municipalities don't want to approve them so they can be used as a back door to allowing multi-family in neighborhoods zoned for single family. Allowing them with the provision that they have to share an address means that the only people who live in them will be friends or family of the occupants of the main unit, which is more in line with the intention of the zoning code. I suspect that the concern about the restaurants is more aesthetic than traffic-related. This is a residential district, and there's a difference between living in close proximity to a storefront that happens to have a sub shop or pizza place and a McDonald's on its own lot with a wraparound driveway and cars idling in line.

I don't know if you read my recent award-winning writeup on East Liberty, but in it I discuss Jane Jacobs and how more serious academics (particularly sociologist Herbert Gans) tended to criticize her urban theory as being based more on aesthetics than anything else. I think the same applies to the armchair urbanists of today, who have waged war against the parking minimum. I have no strong opinions on any particular policy, but I can tell you right now that no builder outside of a dense urban area is going to build an apartment complex without adequate parking, regardless of what the law says, and even in urban areas there's little demand for car-free living. While it may be true that eliminating parking would reduce the per-unit cost of an apartment, it would most likely just shift that cost from the developer/occupant onto the public at large, as the residents would park on the street. They also say nothing about the possibility that very few developers would be willing to forgo parking completely and would still surround their complexes with huge lots and garages that the armchair urbanists like to bitch about, much in the way they also include pools and rec rooms as amenities to residents.

My suspicion is that the address rules are to prevent people from renting them out.

No, the consultant confirmed at a meeting (again, attended by only two interested citizens including me) that it was just poorly worded and would be fixed to refer to secondary unit designators. There's already a separate provision that bans an ADU from (1) being inhabited if the owner lives neither in the ADU nor in the principal building, or (2) being a bed-and-breakfast or a short-term rental.

Municipalities don't want to approve them so they can be used as a back door to allowing multi-family in neighborhoods zoned for single family.

The zone in question already will allow three-story apartment buildings by right under the draft code (up from just duplexes under the current code).

I suspect that the concern about the restaurants is more aesthetic than traffic-related.

No, a government official confirmed at the same meeting that it was traffic-related. Specifically, he doesn't want to see a repeat of a particular drivethrough elsewhere in the municipality that consistently backs up into the street during mornings. (He said something like, "I don't know how PennDOT approved that highway occupancy permit.") And he expects the traffic numbers that I cited to be applicable more to a fast-food restaurant in a commercial zone than to a "neighborhood" fast-food restaurant that would actually be built in a residential zone.

I have no strong opinions on any particular policy, but I can tell you right now that no builder outside of a dense urban area is going to build an apartment complex without adequate parking, regardless of what the law says, and even in urban areas there's little demand for car-free living. While it may be true that eliminating parking would reduce the per-unit cost of an apartment, it would most likely just shift that cost from the developer/occupant onto the public at large, as the residents would park on the street.

Aren't you contradicting yourself in the space of two sentences? Developers would never build without adequate parking (then we can get rid of the minimum, right?) and also getting rid of the minimum would cause people to park on the street. Pick one?

No builder outside of a dense urban area would go without one. Builders within a dense urban area might, which will mightily piss off residents of that neighborhood who already rely on street parking, generally because their houses were built prior to parking requirements.

residents of that neighborhood who already rely on street parking

Well, I have a solution for that, but you (along with the rest of this forum) aren't going to like it.

You should know that when it comes to these things I'm a terminal pragmatist, and I actually started reading that book, though I haven't made it past the introduction yet. For that reason, I won't comment about any particular scheme, as I don't want to go off half-cocked. By that measure, from what I've read so far and can glean of the author's philosophy, I'll tell you right now that any scheme that involves charging residents market rates to park in front of their houses may make sense from an economic perspective, but politically isn't any better than just eliminating the minimums. In fact, it's probably worse. I personally live in a house with an integral garage in a suburb where overnight street parking is generally prohibited so I have no horse in this race.

I don't think SFH neighborhoods are his primary focus.

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