How obscure parking rules have misshaped our communities and opportunities for better options. [long] Garages and driveways are the primary entrance to this Tigard, OR apartment complex. Photo credit Brett VA. Parking rules buried in city land-use codes have surprisingly pernicious effects. Requirements that builders provide ample quotas of off-street parking spaces worsen traffic, multiply collisions, push up housing prices, dampen business profitability, amplify sprawl, and pollute both air and water. Parking rules are a surprisingly potent hidden force shaping—or misshaping—our communiti...
Small-scale urban developments starting to sprout. Thank a change in the parking code
The City of Miami eliminated its parking requirement for small-scale development in 2015. Small-scale projects in Little Havana, Wynwood, Allapattah and Edgewater are rising thanks to it.
Somerville passes first zoning overhaul in three decades
The city’s new rules repeal minimum parking requirements for most of Somerville and allow backyard cottages—including tiny homes—among myriad other changes.
On a brisk Saturday morning in November, a group of two dozen cyclists pauses in front of a four-story apartment complex in East Austin. The Terrace at Oak Springs, run by the nonprofit Integral Care, opened in September to provide …
San Diego's parking reforms could increase the cost of renting or buying a home
SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – Licensed Real Estate Broker Mark Powell joined KUSI to discuss the impact of San Diego’s parking reforms. The parking reforms allows builders to develop units without parking to lower housing costs. San Diego City Council voted to reform parking to help reduce traffic and increase housing affordability. Categories: Good Morning San Diego, In Studio Guests
Restoring the missing middle: an affordable housing plan for Hartford
We all need a place to live in. For many families, housing remains one of the biggest, and most critical, monthly expenses, one that has an impact on everything from their health to their children’s education. Cities must ensure that residents have access to housing that is both affordable, well-maintained, and has good access to jobs and services. This is the one policy that policymakers should make a priority to get it right.
Houston's expansion of market-based parking is a step toward a more walkable city
Houston is probably not destined to be among the world’s most walkable cities. Between the mind-melting heat, the ankle-breaking sidewalks, the criss-crossing freeways and the seemingly endless sprawl, getting around by foot isn’t easy to do. Still, there’s no reason to succumb to nihilism. So I welcomed the Houston City Council’s vote last week expanding the city’s “market-based parking area” to cover parts of Midtown, Montrose and East Downtown, as well as downtown’s Central Business District. It’s a relatively modest reform, to be clear. The change will exempt some new developments in th...
“The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is the right to destroy the city.” — Lewis Mumford, 1958 One of the unintended consequences of car-oriented cities is the sprawl created by cars that no...
Minneapolis Takes Big Step toward Legalizing Triplexes on All Single-Family Lots
Plan approved by Minneapolis city council also includes taller apartment buildings near transit and a historic abolition on all off-street parking quotas.
Relaxed Orange County zoning could add 30,000 places to live by 2030, task force recommends
Orange County’s housing task force wants to loosen decades-old zoning codes and give bigger incentives to developers, in hopes of adding 30,000 much-need units over the next 10 years.
We Require Too Much Parking. These Boston Planners Found Out Exactly How Much.
It’s easy to claim “We have too much parking” but to prove it? These Boston area planners were up to the challenge, surveying over 200 apartment buildings’ parking lots. What they found… might not shock you.
Emeryville may scrap parking requirements for all new buildings to discourage car use
In an effort to encourage people to ditch their cars, Emeryville may scrap a long-standing requirement that developers provide ample off-street parking spaces for their buildings — if any at …