The Latest Cities To Repeal Costly Parking Minimums
(Source: Flickr/Brad K.)
As #BlackFridayParking approaches, we want to share some of the latest cities in North America that have challenged decades-old parking requirements that have wasted productive land on automobile storage. Parking reform is snowballing. You can learn more about why by checking out our priority campaign: End Parking Mandates and Subsidies.
Austin, Texas
On November 1, 2023, Austin, Texas, voted 8–2 to repeal the parking mandates that have shaped how the city can—and more importantly, can’t—grow. “[Parking] gobbles up scarce land. It adds burdensome costs to developments that get passed on to renters and buyers. It makes it harder for small businesses to get off the ground. And it harms walkability and actively works against our public investments in transit, bike lanes, trails and sidewalks,” Zo Qadri, who sponsored the resolution to repeal the mandatory minimums, said during the vote.
When the resolution first fell on the desks of Austin’s city council in May 2023, elected officials were nervous. Challenging parking in Austin came with much of the same opposition it gets elsewhere. Yet, both the ambition of elected officials like Qadri and the fact that cities of similar sizes, histories, and demographics were able to do away with the mandates paved the way for Austin to consider doing the same.
Richmond, Virginia
In a move approved unanimously by the city’s planning commission and city council, Richmond joined a growing list of cities in repealing parking mandates.
“I realized we don’t have a parking problem,” said city councilor Andreas Addison, who introduced the repeal, “we have a lack-of-access-to-parking problem.” With mandatory parking minimums now repealed, Addison is looking forward to the creativity the city can deploy in “reinventing paved space.” As simple as it is, that creativity can begin with introducing shared parking in off-street lots, something that the parking mandates and zoning prohibited in the past.
While the unanimity was a surprise to some, parking minimums have been causing headaches for both city staff and business owners for years. Ida MaMusu, co-owner and chef of Africanne on Main, recalled how restrictive parking regulations delayed her restaurant’s relocation. Formerly situated in downtown Richmond, Africanne on Main was moving to Virginia Commonwealth University’s Monroe Park Campus, but it couldn’t reopen until it came up with two more parking spots (for a total of five). “Now things [are] slow, prices [are] going up in food, and we still got this huge parking bill,” MaMusu told Virginia Business.
Stories like MaMusu’s are what ultimately convinced the city council to repeal the requirements on April 24, 2023.
Special Shoutout to Oregon
A growing list of cities across Oregon, including Beaverton, Salem, Albany, Tigran, Portland, and Bend recognized that the outdated parking mandates dominating how Oregonian cities can grow, look, and feel were at odds with their goals. Beaverton’s newest councilmember, Kevin Teater, even campaigned on the promise to abolish parking minimums and referred to the move as “absolutely transformative.”
The trend isn’t random. As Sightline researcher Catie Gould reported back in June, the state lifted parking mandates statewide for “properties within a half-mile of frequent transit corridors and within three-quarters of a mile of rail stations.” For cities like Tigard and Corvallis, “transit-oriented” areas constitute over 60% of the city’s land. “Most of our city falls within a half-mile of our transportation corridor,” Anne Catlin, Albany’s comprehensive planning manager, told Gould. “It was an easy decision.”
In Tigard, the first city to abolish minimums citywide back in January, parking regulations were crushing small business dreams. Gould recalled how Jordan Elting, a local “obsessed with arcade games since he was a kid,” was losing out on revenue and community because serving alcohol at his brick-and-mortar arcade would involve providing 40% more parking. The arcade had called Tigard Plaza, a sort of strip mall already surrounded by shared parking, home since its opening in February 2022. Elting pointed out how not only was there plenty of parking out front, but the parking on the other side of the strip was always empty.
When the news hit that Tigard had eliminated its parking minimums, he didn’t realize those regulations pertained to him. It wasn’t until a phone call from the city planning department that he realized his battle was not only over, but that he’d won. “All right, I guess that’s what [abolishing parking minimums] meant,” he told Gould. “That got rid of what I see as absolutely ridiculous red tape. Obviously, it ends up being a good change for businesses.”
Check out our past roundups of cities that have repealed parking minimums:
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Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.