Fresno Development Will Provide Little Parking

A development planned for downtown Fresno will include less parking than would normally be expected, following the recent trend to reduce the amount of parking mandated and built into new construction. As Danielle Bergstrom reports for Fresnoland, the project is remarkable even for Fresno, where parking requirements are lax but many developers fear that potential residents will lose interest without parking included with their units.

“Pro-housing activists have long pushed for cities to reduce or eliminate parking requirements on housing projects near transit or in walking distance to major amenities for the added cost it can bring to a project, making some infeasible to finance.” Now, a new state law bars cities from enforcing parking requirements near transit stations, letting developers choose how much parking to build based on their own estimates of market conditions.

“The Fresno Planning Commission approved a 37-unit housing development on Broadway and Stanislaus streets – sandwiched between the Mayflower Lofts and Kepler School’s recess yard – with just seven parking spaces,” Bergstrom writes. The decision was appealed by a neighboring property owner who cited concerns about added pressure on local street parking.