Why is that preferential treatment? It's just letting them keep the parking availability associated with the density of their neighborhoods before someone decided to build apartment buildings after 150 years of nothing but rowhouses. Besides, parking is always the issue that makes people fight development, so take that off the table and it will be way easier to turn rowhouse neignhoods into higher density. Again, if it's really true that apartments don't attract car owners this will be win win for everyone.