Ann Arbor Votes to Eliminate Parking Minimums

The Ann Arbor City Council voted earlier this week to eliminate parking requirements throughout the city—another incremental step for the parking reform movement built on the research and rhetoric of Donald Shoup, author of the High Cost of Free Parking.

Josh Hakala reported the news of the zoning changes for WEMU, after the news of the vote was left to circulate on Twitter for an entire day. Hakala’s brief account of the news includes a soundbite from Ann Arbor Councilmember Erica Briggs.

“According to Briggs, by eliminating unnecessary parking, developments are able to save money, which makes housing and businesses more affordable. She says by reducing the amount of asphalt and using less space for parking, the city can be more walkable, which is good for the environment,” writes Hakala.

A city staff report prepared in advance of the vote lists the kinds of land uses that would no longer require minimum numbers of parking spaces to include residential occupancies, adult and child care centers, outdoor recreation, transit corridor developments, and nonprofit corporations. Other changes, like changes to the Required Parking-Calculating Required Parking section of the UDC were also approved by the city council.

For more analysis of the vote, see a blog post by Nat. M. Zorach for the Handbuilt City. According to Zorach’s assessment, the zoning changes implemented by Ann Arbor “may bode well for a region that has struggled to adopt more progressive transportation and land use policy measures.”

Zorach’s coverage, linked in the source article below, includes background on parking requirements and the intended goals of reforms like those approved in Ann Arbor.