Senator TYDINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Lashley. We appreciate your statement and we hope that we can get some help from your people. Mr. LASHLEY. Fine. Senator TYDINGS. I would like to announce that since the las hearing Congressman B. F. Sisk, of California, has introduced companion bill to S. 2769 in the House of Representatives, and indicated earlier in the record, the Bureau of the Budget has reviewe S. 2769 and recommends its enactment. We will resume hearings on S. 2769 next week. The subcommittee will stand in recess. (Whereupon, at 10:25 a.m., the subcommittee recessed, to recon vene at 10 a.m., Thursday, February 17, 1966.) ESTABLISHMENT OF PARKING FACILITIES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (S. 2769) THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1966 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON BUSINESS AND COMMERCE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10:10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 6226, New Senate Office Building, Senator Joseph D. Tydings (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senator Tydings. Also present: Chester H. Smith, staff director; Fred L. McIntyre, counsel; and Richard E. Judd, professional staff member. Senator TYDINGS. We will call the Subcommittee on Business and Commerce of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia to order. This is a hearing on S. 2769, a bill which I introduced with Senator Dirksen and Senator Kennedy of New York. The hearings have been continuing for sometime. Hopefully today will be the windup. We are happy to have before us a number of distinguished witnesses this morning. The first witness is Mr. Thomas W. Sandoz, Sr., president of the Washington Board of Realtors. We are delighted to welcome you, Mr. Sandoz. We appreciate greatly your interest in this very vital problem. Before you begin to testify I would like to offer as a part of the record a letter dated February 16, 1966, from the Washington Board of Realtors, Inc., signed by Mr. Thomas W. Sandoz, Sr., advising that the Washington Board of Realtors as an association has gone on record and voted unanimously to approve Senate bill 2679, the bill upon which these hearings are being held. I will offer this letter in its entirety for the record. We will be delighted to hear from you. (The document referred to follows:) Hon. JOSEPH D. TYDINGS, WASHINGTON BOARD OF REALTORS, INC., Chairman, Business and Commerce Committee, Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR TYDINGS: The Washington Board of Realtors, as an association, has been greatly concerned with ever-increasing parking problems in the downtown areas of the District of Columbia, and for the past 3 years this matter has been under study by our parking and transportation committee. On February 9, 1965, representatives of our parking and transportation committee appeared before our directors to discuss the merits of legislation drafted at 57-450-66- the request of the District of Columbia Commissioners that would create a Parking Authority in the District of Columbia. After hearing both sides of the matter, our directors voted approval of the Commissioners proposed legislation but requested that the eminent domain features be eliminated. It was also recommended that public park areas be used for underground parking as an answer to the need for the eminent domain features. On February 8, 1966, our directors again considered parking legislation for the District of Columbia and voted unanimously to approve Senate bill S. 2769 on which you are currently holding hearings. In approving S. 2769, our directors recommended use of public parks for underground garages and the purchase of property on the open market before resorting to the powers of eminent domain. If the Washington Board of Relators can be of help to your subcommittee during its consideration of parking legislation, please let us know. Sincerely, THOMAS W. SANDOZ, Sr., President. STATEMENT OF THOMAS W. SANDOZ, SR., PRESIDENT, Mr. SANDOZ. Mr. Chairman, my name is Thomas W. Sandoz, Sr. I am president of the Washington Board of Realtors and appear here on behalf of that association and its more than 1,100 members operating in the District of Columbia. For the past several years our association has had a growing concern with the ever-increasing parking and transportation problems in the District of Columbia because of their adverse effect on the community. These two related problems have been studied by the parking and transportation committee of our association, and while the transportation problem seems to be on its way toward being solved by rapid rail transit legislation-parking still seeks a solution. In February 1965 the directors of the Washington Board of Realtors interviewed members of the board's parking and transportation committee to consider the merits of the District of Columbia Commissioners proposed legislation that would create a parking authority. Our directors approved the proposed legislation that the eminent domain feature be eliminated and that the public park areas be used for underground garages in lieu of the eminent domain features. On February 8, 1966, our directors again considered parking legislation for the District of Columbia and voted unanimously to approve legislation for the District of Columbia, Senate bill S. 2769, which this committee is considering with its public hearings. In approving S. 2769 our directors again recommend the use of public parks for underground parking garages and the purchase of property on the open market before resorting to eminent domain. There are those in this city who think it impractical or impossible to construct parking garages under our parks. However, cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have made use of public parks for underground parking with apparent good effect. The location of our parks and squares are such, that if used for public parking, would help to eliminate the problem in many areas of the city. As this committee knows, much of the District's parking consists of temporary facilities, which are held only long enough to develop into office or other high rise buildings. These temporary facilities have done little to eliminate the problem and the parking principals seem unable to solve it. We therefore recommend that Congress enact this necessary legislation, which is designed to alleviate the District of Columbia's parking problem. I thank you. We are Senator TYDINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Sandoz. delighted to have had you with us and we appreciate the time and effort that you have put into this matter and the action of the Washington Board of Realtors. Thank you very much. Mr. John Stabile, of Pittsburgh, Pa. We are delighted to welcome you before this subcommittee. We have heard about your success as an entrepreneur in the field of private parking and we are glad to have your thinking in this area. STATEMENT OF JOHN T. STABILE, PRESIDENT, PARKING SERVICE CORP., PITTSBURGH, PA. Mr. STABILE. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is John T. Stabile. I am president of Parking Service Corp. with offices at 618 Bigelow Boulevard, Pittsburgh, Pa. I wish to express my sincere appreciation for this opportunity to appear before your committee today and express the views of one who has had almost 41 years of experience in the parking business. At present, I own directly, or operate under lease or management contract, 50 parking facilities in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Eighteen of these are multilevel garages and 32 are surface lots, including the parking concession at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport. Last year our facilities parked approximately 8 million cars. My purpose in coming before your committee today is to factually illustrate how the private parking industry in Pittsburgh has not been held back or materially affected by a municipal parking program. If anything, the skeleton network of properly located, permanent offstreet parking facilities developed by the Public Parking Authority of Pittsburgh in the downtown area has encouraged extensive parking development by private interests during the past 15 years. In 1952, the parking authority was ready to finance its first major downtown project. In order to provide the necessary security to this financing, my company offered the authority a guaranteed annual lease for an initial 6-year term with an option to renew for an additional 6 years. The annual rental proposed was sufficient to cover the authority's yearly debt service charges on its bonds. In addition, the city pledged to the authority's bond issue two-thirds of the net onstreet meter revenues with this pledge remaining in effect for the term of the bonds. It is significant to note that in the 15 years of operation of the two garages built under this $6 million revenue bond issue, annual operating revenues have been sufficient not only to meet direct operating expenses, lease rentals, and management fees, but have generated a surplus which has been distributed between the authority and our company. In other words, not once has it been necessary to call on the city's meter revenue pledge to satisfy debt service obligations. As a matter of fact, the authority has accelereted the retirement of this issue by almost 3 years. In 1955, the authority conducted its second comprehensive parking study of the Golden Triangle which determined that a substantial deficit of offstreet parking still existed. As a result of this survey, the authority, in 1957, proceeded to develop another major self-parking facility which was leased to our company as the successful bidder for operation. The annual guaranteed rental which we offered in our 5-year lease proposal enabled the authority to issue $2 million in revenue bonds to finance the project. As of today, this facility is satisfying a mixture of short- and longterm parking demand at a strategically located site near the fringe of the business district. The authority would not have been able to market the bond issues which I have described without the cooperative participation of private enterprise, lending its financing resources and operating know-how to these developments. It should be mentioned that the authority has followed, since its inception, a policy of not operating its downtown garages directly but leasing them to experienced operators, or, in three cases, to the major department stores. I do not know of a more clear-cut demonstration of genuine partnership between government and private enterprise in providing adequate, well located offstreet parking to meet the varied demands of a major urban center. In the statement of your January 20 hearing of Mr. William G. Barr, executive vice president of the National Parking Association, he said, and I quote: Municipal parking dries up the money market. Mr. Barr went on to maintain that: Major lending institutions, such as the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, *** cannot lend money for private parking development where there exists the threat or actual existence of subsidized municipal competition. This is an outright misstatement. This same lending institution, within recent years, has provided, in downtown Pittsburgh, the entire financing for a 450-car self-parking garage, a Greyhound bus terminal which includes a 160-car integral garage, and a 971-car self-parking structure, the latter developed by Stanwix Autopark. In addition, another major downtown development, Chatham Center, which includes a 2,200-car underground garage, has been financed completely with private funds. During the past 18 months, one of our other companies of which I am president has purchased three downtown properties, two of which have older parking structures on them. We were able to obtain 100percent financing from local banks through mortgages and commercial loans. In addition, we have been successful in borrowing money to acquire and improve other downtown land for several surface parking lots. These latter locations are temporary in nature, awaiting future development in accordance with Pittsburgh's long-range master plan for the Golden Triangle. I challenge anyone, in the light of this evidence, to claim that the money market available for private enterprise development in parking has dried up. If it has, there is a true lack of knowledge or initiative in seeking out sound and reputable sources of private financing. |