By Ian Thomas
A State Senator, a neighborhood Planning Commissioner, and a nationwide advocacy chief all agree on at the least two factors – parking mandates are very dangerous to communities and the parking reform motion is gathering momentum.
America Walks’ June 5 webinar, “Individuals Over Parking: Advancing Inexpensive Housing and Walkability via Parking Reform,” featured Minnesota State Senator Omar Fateh, creator of a invoice to ban communities throughout the state from enacting minimal parking necessities. Though the “Minnesota Individuals Over Parking Act” didn’t grow to be legislation within the 2024 legislative session, Sen. Fateh confirmed that he acquired robust help from members on each side of the aisle and plans to introduce his proposal once more subsequent yr.
As defined by Chris Meyer, Chair of the Minneapolis Planning Fee, parking minimums are constructed into the zoning code of virtually each municipality in the USA. Designed within the Fifties to handle a priority about shortages, these inflexible guidelines require actual property builders to incorporate particular numbers of parking areas of their plans – an residence complicated should have two areas per unit, a restaurant wants one for each 100 sq. ft of inner area, and many others. Within the early 2010s, Chris realized that these mandates had been inflicting suburban sprawl and automotive dependence, and determined to do one thing about it.
To begin with, he purchased a duplicate of Donald Shoup’s “The Excessive Price of Free Parking” for each member of the Minneapolis Metropolis Council (an act of generosity he repeated this yr with the State Legislature, see picture). Then, he lobbied for a repeal of minimal parking necessities, so the town would grow to be extra walkable, scale back its carbon footprint, and construct extra reasonably priced housing. In consequence, Minneapolis eliminated the necessities for developments near transit stations in 2015 and eradicated them citywide in 2021.
Tony Jordan, President of the Parking Reform Community, was the third webinar visitor. His group supplies training on the dangerous results of parking mandates and advocates for ending them. Through the webinar, Tony mentioned the gathering momentum for parking reform throughout the nation. Within the 9 years since Minneapolis’ pioneering transfer to permit house owners of land close to transit to decide on how a lot parking they wanted, lots of of cities have enacted comparable partial reforms and dozens have eradicated mandates citywide. Tony additionally gave an summary of the Parking Reform Community’s assets and suggested native advocates to have interaction public officers in discussions in regards to the excessive value and unfavorable affect of present parking insurance policies.
The webinar was co-facilitated by America Walks Board Member Arlis Reynolds and State and Native Program Director Ian Thomas. Arlis, who can also be a Metropolis Council Member in Costa Mesa, CA, requested the panelists whether or not parking reform is a well-liked challenge for native candidates working for election. The final consensus was that it may be a profitable progressive place so long as the main points are defined clearly and myths are dismissed. For instance, eradicating authorities mandates isn’t the identical factor as prohibiting parking– builders can nonetheless construct as many areas as they need. In response to Ian’s query in regards to the alignment of political events for or in opposition to parking reform, Omar, Chris, and Tony all agreed that there’s loads of bipartisan help with environment-focused liberals and small-government conservatives opposing parking mandates.
To wrap up the webinar, every panelist gave their 30-second “elevator speech” in help of parking reform.
Take a look at the total recording of the webinar:
