https://www.npr.org/2024/01/02/1221366173/u-s-cities-drop-parking-space-minimums-development

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U.S. cities are getting rid of parking minimums Around the country,
cities are throwing out their own parking requirements, hoping to end
up with less parking - and more affordable housing, better transit,
and walkable neighborhoods.

National

From Austin to Anchorage, U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street
parking minimums

January 2, 20245:01 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Laurel Wamsley at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., November 7,
2018. (photo by Allison Shelley)

Laurel Wamsley

From Austin to Anchorage, U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street
parking minimums

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[gettyimage]
Enlarge this image

Austin, Texas, is the country's largest city to toss out its
requirements for off-street car parking. The city hopes removing the
mandates will encourage other modes of transportation and help
housing affordability. Brandon Bell/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Austin, Texas, is the country's largest city to toss out its
requirements for off-street car parking. The city hopes removing the
mandates will encourage other modes of transportation and help
housing affordability.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The city council in Austin, Texas recently proposed something that
could seem like political Kryptonite: getting rid of parking
minimums.

Those are the rules that dictate how much off-street parking
developers must provide -- as in, a certain number of spaces for every
apartment and business.

Around the country, cities are throwing out their own parking
requirements - hoping to end up with less parking, more affordable
housing, better transit, and walkable neighborhoods.

Some Austinites were against tossing the rules.

"Austin has developed as a low density city without adequate mass
transportation system," said resident Malcolm Yeatts. "Austin
citizens cannot give up their cars. Eliminating adequate parking for
residents will only increase the flight of the middle class and
businesses to the suburbs."

How Parking Explains Everything

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How Parking Explains Everything

But much more numerous were voices in support of eliminating the
minimums and the impact they've had on housing costs, congestion, and
walkability.

"I think our country has used its land wastefully, like a drunk
lottery winner that's squandered their newfound wealth," said
resident Tai Hovanky. "We literally paved paradise and put up a
parking lot."

The amendment sailed through the council -- making Austin the biggest
city in the country to eliminate its parking mandates citywide.

Dozens of cities have ditched parking minimums

But it's not just Austin. More than 50 other cities and towns have
thrown out their minimums, from Anchorage, Alaska, and San Jose,
Calif., to Gainesville, Fla.

"They're all just dead weight," says Tony Jordan, the president of
the Parking Reform Network, of parking minimums. One issue is just
how arbitrary they can be.

Take bowling alleys. Jordan says the number of required parking spots
per bowling lane could vary anywhere from two to five, in cities
right next to each other.

"What's the difference between a bowler in city A and city B?
Nothing. It's just these codes were put in ... very arbitrarily back
30 or 40 years ago and they're very hard to change because anytime
the city wants to change them, there's a whole big hoopla," he says.

[gettyimage]
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San Francisco is one of many U.S. cities that has thrown out its
parking minimums in recent years. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide
caption

toggle caption
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

San Francisco is one of many U.S. cities that has thrown out its
parking minimums in recent years.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Random as these rules can be, they have major consequences: Parking
creates sprawl and makes neighborhoods less walkable. Asphalt traps
heat and creates runoff. And parking minimums can add major costs to
building new housing: a single space in a parking structure can cost
$50,000 or more.

One 2017 study found that including garage parking increased the rent
of a housing unit by about 17 percent.

Author Interviews

Why the U.S. builds more three-car garages than one-bedroom
apartments

Why the U.S. builds more three-car garages than one-bedroom
apartments

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The real problem, says Jordan, is what doesn't get built: "The
housing that could have gone in that space or the housing that wasn't
built because the developer couldn't put enough parking. ... So we
just lose housing in exchange for having convenient places to store
cars."

A move to let the market decide

Austin City Council member Zo Qadri was the lead sponsor on the
resolution to remove parking mandates there. He emphasizes that
getting rid of parking mandates isn't the same thing as getting rid
of parking: "It simply lets the market and individual property owners
decide what levels of parking are appropriate or needed."

Austin removed parking requirements for its downtown area a decade
ago, "and the market has still provided plenty of parking in the vast
majority of the projects since then," says Qadri.

A new survey from Pew Charitable Trusts found that 62% of Americans
support property owners and builders to make decisions about the
number of off-street parking spaces, instead of local governments.

Angela Greco, a 36-year-old musician and copywriter in Austin, is one
of them. She drives, but prefers to walk or take transit. She's not
worried that doing away with the old rules will make it too hard to
find a place to park.

"I've lived in like cities where it's way more difficult, like New
York and L.A.," Greco says. "Parking just isn't that difficult in
Austin to me to begin with, even in really dense areas."

[gettyimage]
Enlarge this image

Many cities hope that ditching their parking requirements will make
their neighborhoods more amenable to biking and walking. People are
seen biking and walking along Park Avenue near Grand Central Station
during the Summer Streets initiative in New York City in August 2022.
Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

Many cities hope that ditching their parking requirements will make
their neighborhoods more amenable to biking and walking. People are
seen biking and walking along Park Avenue near Grand Central Station
during the Summer Streets initiative in New York City in August 2022.

Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

She says the question of whether the city invests in transit and
walkability, or doubles down on cars, is decisive in whether she'll
live in Austin long-term.

"Like if it doesn't seem like the public transit's going to get
better, and if it seems like the highway expansion is going to
happen, then I'm probably going to start looking for where else I can
live. ... It's a major factor in my life and my happiness. Like
sometimes I'm driving on the road and I'll be in traffic or something
or even just on the highway, and it's such an ugly landscape," Greco
says. "And then I'll think: this isn't really how I want to spend my
adult life."

Too much parking can hinder effective transit

What about the idea that cities without good transit can't cut back
on parking?

Jonathan Levine, a professor of urban and regional planning at the
University of Michigan who studies transportation policy reform, says
cities' parking minimums can make good transit nearly impossible to
develop.

"An area that has a lot of parking is transit-hostile territory," he
says.

He explains why: When people take transit, they complete their
journey by walking to their destination. A sea of parking at the
destination makes that walk longer, and it makes the physical
environment less appealing to those on foot.

Street Food: Cities Turn Parking Spaces Into Dining Spots And No One
Seems To Mind

Business

Street Food: Cities Turn Parking Spaces Into Dining Spots And No One
Seems To Mind

"Who wants to walk by a bunch of parking lots to get to your
destination?" Levine notes.

And having tons of parking encourages driving. "If you have parking
everywhere that you're going, that parking essentially is calling to
the drivers, drive here! Park here! ... So if you keep on designing
those areas by governmental mandate, you're creating areas that
transit can't serve effectively," says Levine.

Many more U.S. cities - including New York City, Milwaukee, and
Dallas -- are exploring getting rid of their parking minimums too.
Duluth, Minn., lifted its parking mandates in December.

Levine says getting rid of these rules is good news for cities.

"It's a huge drag on housing affordability. And it's a huge
impediment for cities fulfilling their destiny, which is enabling
human interaction. Because what parking does is it separates land
uses, separates people. It makes cities have a much more sprawling
physical profile than they otherwise would have."

  * land use
  * urban planning
  * parking
  * Austin, Texas

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