Federal Zoning Bill Would Preempt Local Parking Mandates

Parking mandates can be expensive.

Local regulations requiring that new businesses and apartments come with a set number of spaces mean developers are losing floorspace that could be revenue-generating residential units and shop fronts. Cramming the required number of parking spaces onto small properties can require “structured” above- or below-ground parking lots, which can cost as much as $75,000 a space.

Many projects on smaller lots are rendered infeasible by such requirements, even if the zoning code would otherwise allow them. Often, mandated parking goes unused.

To fix this situation, housing reformers are passing a flurry of local and state policies that liberalize or abolish minimum parking requirements. A new bill in Congress would take these ideas national.

On Tuesday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D–Calif.) will introduce the Homes for People Not Cars Act of 2023. The bill would give property owners “sole discretion” to determine how many parking spaces to include in new or substantially renovated buildings that are within half a mile of a major transit stop. This liberalization would apply to residential, commercial, retail, or industrial projects, provided the buildings are “in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.”

“We’re obviously in a housing crisis in California and across the country. One of the largest barriers to developing housing is parking requirements,” says Garcia. His bill, he adds, will “allow the market to dictate how much parking” is needed.

Garcia was inspired by California’s A.B. 2097, which passed last year. That law generally forbids cities and counties from imposing parking requirements on development near transit. Localities can require parking on an individual project basis, but only after showing the absence of mandated parking would have a “substantially negative impact” on parking needs. Small apartments and projects with 20 percent affordable units are totally exempt.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, has gone further by eliminating parking minimums citywide. Planners say the policy change is producing a boom in smaller apartment buildings, which now tend to be built with fewer parking spaces than the old code required.

A similar story has played out in Buffalo