In addition, the bill being considered by the committee provides that no more than 75 percent of the meters can be used as a guarantee for the issuance of any bond issue. A few years ago, these same interests opposed the construction of a city-owned underground facility at 21st and E Streets NW., which would have served an intensive demand for both short- and long-term spaces generated by nearby Government office buildings. They gave assurances that any new requirement would quickly be met by private industry. Seven years later, the deficit in the parking supply in this area caused by new buildings, and by construction of highways and bridge approaches, has grown even more acute. You will probably hear that the Equitable Life Assurance Society, which has loaned millions of dollars for offstreet parking, will not make parking loans in the face of the actuality or even the threat of municipal parking programs, and that this eventuality has the immediate, practical effect of drying up the money market for investment in privately developed parking facilities. In rebuttal to this point of view, I should like to point out, as one example, that in the city of San Francisco, the following insurance companies have made loans even though San Francisco has an active municipal parking program: The Continental Casualty Co., the Continental Assurance Co., State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., and State Farm Life Insurance Co. I could go on with an endless list of other insurance companies that will provide financing for well-planned parking facilities in any city that has both municipal and private parking. I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to appear before it on this legislation which is of great importance to the District of Columbia. Thank you. Senator DOMINICK. Senator Tydings' staff assistant has a couple of questions he would like to ask you, Mr. Heath. Mr. WURTZEL. On behalf of Senator Tydings, I would like to ask, first of all, Mr. Heath, does your agency now have available to it the meter revenues from the District of Columbia parking meters? Mr. HEATH. The parking meters revenues as of 1962, when an amendment to a District revenue bill was placed thereon, now go into what is called the parking account of the highway fund, and they have been made available for highway uses, since 1962. Mr. WURTZEL. And how much money has been collected through the meters during this period? Mr. HEATH. Well, our average collections are around $750,000 a year of parking meter revenues. During the period since 1962, there has been appropriated for highway purposes, snow cleaning, purchase of highway equipment, and maintenance of streets, through fiscal 1966-$5,339,000 of these meter revenues have been appropriated for these purposes. In the 1967 budget, which is now in the course of preparation, there is $654,000 out of meter revenues for highway purposes, or a total of $5,993,000, out of meter revenues, that have gone to highway purposes since fiscal year 1963. Senator DOMINICK. Mr. Heath, I was interested in the enlarged photographs that you showed of other public parking facilities which are underground. Do you happen to know whether or not the zoning laws of the District would permit private operators to go forward on a program of this kind? For example, suppose they wanted to make an underground parking space and landscape the top. Would the zoning laws permit them to do it? Mr. HEATH. Yes, sir; I am positive that the zoning laws would be permissive in that instance. Senator DOMINICK. I thought there were limitations on the use that could be put on land in the central business district, including underground? Mr. HEATH. No, as an example, Mellon Square, formerly was occupied by buildings. Three Mellon foundations purchased those buildings, and the property, and deeded it to the city of Pittsburgh for a public park and the city of Pittsburgh entered into the agreement with the Pittsburgh Parking Authority to provide the underground parking beneath. Senator DOMINICK. I understand that. I am talking about in the District. Mr. HEATH. Now in the District. I am sure that if a group of parking operators would like to acquire a block of buildings and deeded it to the city for a park, that permission could be granted to those operators to construct beneath that park an underground parking facility. Senator DOMINICK. I don't think there is any doubt in anybody's mind, that if we could get parking put in that way, it would be great. We would get it off the street, and out of sight. One of the couple of questions that I wanted to ask you is on page 2 of your statement, and again, I am just trying to bring these things into focus. In the next to last paragraph there, you make comparisons between the number of spaces that there now are, or the number of spaces that will be provided when the new buildings are completed, but you make no comparison between the number of people that are employed in the area now with the number of people who will be employed when the businesses are there. You simply say that the businesses themselves are going to have 47,000 personnel. Mr. HEATH. I would like to submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, an employee population survey made in 1960, brought up to date in 1965, and the estimates of the planning commission for 1971. Senator DOMINICK. Do you see the point I am making, Mr. Heath? Mr. HEATH. Yes, sir; I understand. Senator DOMINICK. In the specific areas that you are talking about, you refer to the additional 47,000 people that will be there. Well, you don't say, "additional" you say 47,000. Mr. HEATH. Yes, sir. Senator DOMINICK. You don't show how many there are now. Mr. HEATH. That is what I would like to submit for the record. I did not want to read it. Senator DOMINICK. That will be received and made a part of the file. Mr. HEATH. And I would also like to submit a list of the new buildings that have been constructed or are under construction, and this shows the number of square feet of the building, the population of the building, the parking spaces displaced, and the parking spaces in the new building. I would like to submit this also for the record. |