San Francisco Could Be Next to Eliminate Parking Minimums Citywide

"San Francisco is poised to become the first big U.S. city to no longer require developers to include at least some parking in their housing developments," reports Joshua Sabatini. San Francisco would follow Hartford, Connecticut—the first city to end parking minimums citywide—and Buffalo, New York, which also passed similar legislation, with a few caveats.

For the city to implement this drastic overhaul of its parking requirements, it will have to pass legislation introduced by Supervisor Jane Kim, who recently discussed the proposed legislation at a public hearing.

“It would not prohibit parking in any redevelopment. It would merely remove the requirement that a developer would have to build a minimum number of parking spaces,” Kim said during Monday’s Land Use and Transportation Committee hearing.

Kim also says that the city is already working around parking requirements for most developments.

Arielle Fleisher, a representative for public policy think tank SPUR, is also quoted in the article discussing the benefits of ending parking requirements.

“There is no good reason for the city to force the private market to produce parking spaces for every housing unit built,” said Arielle Fleisher, a representative for public policy think tank SPUR. “Eliminating minimum parking requirements reduces the cost of producing new housing and enables us to use our land more efficiently by replacing spaces for cars with spaces for people.”

More advocates are cited in the article as supporting the legislation. The full San Francisco Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on the bill next week.