Sixty-nine-year-old Georgia Keith has lived in Over-the-Rhine for 51 years. She currently resides in affordable housing on Republic Street, a narrow stretch shaded by the historic three- and four-story buildings sitting between wider, bustling Race and Vine streets.
Republic is at the center of a development boom in OTR that has longtime residents like Keith experiencing severe difficulties with parking in the neighborhood. That struggle carries a number of consequences for OTR residents, advocates say, influencing decisions about grocery shopping, childcare, work and even whether long-time community members feel welcome in or are able to stay in the neighborhood. City leaders are aware of the problem, but solutions to a simple question — who will park where — have complex political and urban planning dimensions.
For Keith, the difficulties started when activity began to ramp up in OTR. First, it was construction crews parking trucks as they worked on apartment buildings like the Parvis Lofts and restaurants like Quan Hapa.
“I understood it, but, you know, we were almost like prisoners in our own home,” she says. “If you couldn’t walk to where you were going, you’d better not drive.”
The construction was just the beginning. These days, Keith says it can take her and other members of her family up to half an hour searching for spots to park.
Earlier this month, Cincinnati City Council tried to fix the problem, voting for a second time on an ordinance that would have set aside 450 of the neighborhood’s roughly 1,200 parking spots for holders of residential parking permits. Those permits would cost $108 — the second-most expensive in the country besides San Franciso’s $110-per-year plan — though affordable housing residents could get them at a reduced rate of $18.
Keith and other long-term residents say they shouldn’t have to pay to park in the neighborhood they’ve lived in for years. But Keith also acknowledges that plan is perhaps the best shot for now.
“I don’t like paying, but $18 is better than $108,” she says, noting she’ll do whatever she can to stay in the neighborhood. “I like staying in Over-the-Rhine because it’s central and it’s a grassroots type of community.”
Many other cities, including nearby municipalities like Columbus and Newport, Ky., have residential parking permits. Pittsburgh has had such a program since 1981 and currently sells $20 permits for 39 districts in the city. At least two Cincinnati neighborhoods — Clifton and Pendleton — also sell residential permits at similar rates.
Various groups have called for a permit program in OTR since at least 2014, when the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation brought the idea to Cincinnati City Council members. The developer, which works closely with the city, has spent more than $1 billion in public and private funds in OTR, much of it along the Race and Vine street corridors.
Council first passed the 450-spot plan backed by the OTR Community Council and other community groups last March, but Mayor John Cranley vetoed it. He also nixed Council’s second attempt at passing it Jan. 13, tying it to the city’s politically contentious streetcar and calling it a subsidy from taxpayers who pay for city streets to residents of the neighborhood’s growing compliment of costly condos.
“We would literally be subsidizing residents of three, four, five, and six hundred thousand dollar condos who already are getting tax abatements and already have the city investing hundreds of millions of dollars in Over-the-Rhine and downtown,” Cranley said. “To add insult to injury, we’re telling people who can’t afford $600,000 condos that you cannot park in the space that you paid for.”
But proponents of the plan, which include Vice Mayor David Mann, say that’s a weak argument.
“The idea that we’re somehow subsidizing people who live in the neighborhood by not charging more than $108 a year for parking on the street — I’ve never comprehended that,” Mann said. “I park my cars on the street in Clifton and I don’t have to pay for it.”
Despite a near-unanimous acknowledgement from city officials that the situation needs to be addressed, so far nothing has been put in place — though there have been some near-misses.
Late last year, Cincinnati City Councilman Charlie Winburn, a close ally of Mayor Cranley, visited OTR Community Council President Ryan Messer at his home in the neighborhood. Winburn was introduced to Republic Street residents, who told the councilman about their parking woes. The Republican then approached Vice Mayor Mann and signed a statement supporting the parking plan, which he had originally voted against in March. He would have been the sixth vote supporting the ordinance, enough to overturn Cranley’s veto.
But when it came time to vote, Winburn changed his tune.
“My heart was touched that citizens on Republic Street had a difficult time parking, so I told Mr. Messer that I would support a plan to provide parking to citizens in Over-the-Rhine,” Winburn said at the Jan. 13 Council meeting. “But I wasn’t thinking holistically that we were talking about the entirety of Over-the-Rhine. My focus was on Republic Street.”
Winburn said he never intended to override Cranley’s veto and laid the blame on Mann for the misunderstanding. Democratic Council members who support the plan expressed skepticism about that explanation.
Winburn and Cranley said they’re working on a plan that would provide permits for low-income residents only, perhaps even free-of-charge.
Meanwhile, parking looks to get tougher. The pace of development in the neighborhood is accelerating — a number of new, multi-unit projects are slated for OTR in the coming year — and a new parking meter plan went into effect last year, charging more per hour and extending metered times until as late as 9 p.m. in order to help pay for streetcar operating costs. That’s put residents, especially those who can’t afford garages, in a crunch.
Parking is “a huge challenge” for low-income residents, says Over-the-Rhine Community Housing Executive Director Mary Burke Rivers.
“Especially since the new meters, new rates and new hours went into effect,” she says. “With arms full of groceries, parking blocks away is a nightmare, especially if kids are in tow. Do you make several trips? When do you pay the meter that is in effect until 9 p.m.? Where do relatives park? How much gas and time do you waste driving around looking for parking?”
One source of the parking struggle might be baked into the interplay between increased activity in OTR and parking requirements for developers in the neighborhood.
“It’s not just about on-street parking in Over-the-Rhine,” says Councilman Kevin Flynn, who opposes the parking plan. “It’s about the parking requirements that our zoning code imposes in Over-the-Rhine, which are different and lesser than the requirements in the rest of the city. And then we have developers coming in and requesting variances to go even lower than the reduced requirements. That, of necessity, puts more residential parking on the streets.”
The reality is more complicated than just the city's zoning code as it stands. Generally, developments within the city must provide one to two parking spaces per unit, depending on the type of residential building being built, according to the city’s zoning code. However, various elements — including exceptions in parking requirements for historic renovations, provisions that ease requirements for commercial developments under 2,000 square feet or within 600 feet of public parking and residential developments within 600 feet of a street car stop — have limited the amount of off-street parking some developers have had to build in OTR even as their developments bring more people to the neighborhood. A small part of the neighborhood also sits in a downtown development district that had its parking requirements rolled back in 2013.
Even when developers build parking for apartment or condo buildings, they aren’t usually available or affordable for low-income residents. In fact, the facilities can leave areas with fewer on-street spots as garage entrances and exits take up space once held by on-street parking.
“I’m for the development, but the people who are coming in are getting garages that knock out some of the public parking,” says Republic Street resident Keith. “We have three of those on my block.”
Keith, who sits on OTRCH’s board, supports the plan Council has tried to pass but says there’s an underlying principle going unrecognized.
“It’s a lack of respect that people have for the residents here,” she says. ©
This article was updated to clarify parking requirements in Cincinnati's zoning code.