North Carolina May End Parking Mandates—Your City Should Be Next
A parking garage in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Source: Sergiy Galyonkin on Flickr.)
The ripple effects of outdated parking mandates are felt everywhere. Whether they’re blocking a new business from opening, a church from expanding, or new housing from being built, these rules often get in the way of the kind of communities people want and need.
Parking mandates can also worsen financial stress for cities, as they require costly infrastructure but generate no tax base. Cities often pay to maintain streets, stormwater systems and utilities that serve mostly empty lots.
North Carolina is poised to become the next state to enact statewide parking reform. The Parking Lot Reform and Modernization Act, currently being debated in the legislature, would prohibit local governments from requiring off-street parking minimums.
According to the proposed amendment, cities could no longer require a specific number of parking spaces per development or structure, and they would also be restricted from regulating the dimensions of parking spaces, except in a few cases like accessible or angled parking.
If passed, North Carolina would join a growing list of states taking bold action to roll back regulations that waste land, inflate development costs, and make good projects impossible.
But local governments shouldn't wait for their state to act. Eliminating parking mandates is a low-cost, high-impact reform that cities can do right now. It opens the door to more housing options, supports small businesses, and allows underused land to be put to better use.
It also reduces the financial burden on cities, improving the tax base by converting oversized parking lots into more productive uses. Most importantly, it removes a major barrier to development that holds communities back from growing in the ways they want to.
If your community is struggling with the burden of parking mandates, Strong Towns can help. We’ll come to your city—or meet with you virtually—to help elevate the community conversation around parking reform and building a strong town. Our team has helped cities across the country make this change, and we can help you do it too.
