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Parking Reform
Feature
Assembly Bill 1401, one of the most closely-watched land use bills in the California State legislature this year, would remove parking requirements in "High Quality Transit Areas" statewide.
Feature
Lots of planning is discretionary. Cities and developers negotiate what builders will do for cities in exchange for the right to build, creating an incentive for bad rules, eroding the public's faith in zoning, and enabling political corruption.
A proposed code amendment would expand parking reforms implemented by San Diego in 2019.
NBC San Diego
Raleigh, North Carolina is the latest in a series of cities pursuing a significant departure from the 20th century planning status quo.
The News & Observer
Feature
Donald Shoup, the author of the seminal planning book "The High Cost of Free Parking," explains how parking requirements have poisoned cities and why poor planning is to blame.
Minneapolis joins the avant garde of cities implementing a dramatic overhaul of the parking requirement status quo that has been a primary determinant of the form and function of cities for nearly a century.
Star Tribune
Two options for significant parking reforms are under consideration in St. Paul. The City Council could decide to eliminate parking requirements entirely as soon as this summer.
Pioneer Press
The bill's author and housing advocates argue that easing parking requirements would ease the state's affordable housing crisis and promote the state's climate goals.
Los Angeles Times
A Terner Center for Housing Innovation at U.C. Berkeley analysis predicts that statewide parking reform, as proposed in Assembly Bill 1401, would have a significant impact on the cost of developing residential and commercial buildings in California.
Terner Center for Housing Innovation
New research quantifies the effect of parking reforms implemented by the city of Buffalo in 2017.
Sidewalk Talk
Dallas has launched an effort to reform its "burdensome" parking policies, which have been left largely in the hands of local development districts.
D Magazine
In a decision that is still impossible in most of the country, Chicago's Department of Planning and Development is requiring housing and reduced surface parking to approve a retail project.
Streetsblog Chicago
Elected in November and already proposing bold reforms in parking policy in the city of Bend, Oregon.
The Bulletin
In January, the Sacramento City Council took first steps toward ending single-family zoning citywide. The decision has provoked controversy that is influencing the next steps in the process.
Los Angeles Times
Berkeley is the second city in Northern California to approve landmark zoning reforms so far in 2021.
Streetsblog USA
The Sacramento City Council took steps toward an updated General Plan that includes a variety of innovative planning proposals, including the elimination of single-family zoning by allowing up to four dwelling units on all residential parcels.
Sacramento Bee
Cities like Vancouver are rethinking parking minimums as they try to meet climate goals, reduce traffic, and reallocate street space to other modes.
Sightline
Recent investigations into the conditions facing workers in private parking lots in Philadelphia has produced a series of legislation reforms, but one idea, to lower the city's parking tax, isn't going to fly with this opinion writer.
WHYY
The parking reform movement continues its march across the continent.
Reasons to Be Cheerful
Blog post
New Zealand’s new national urban development policy prohibits parking minimums and increases allowable building heights near transit stations. This is a watershed moment for the country’s cities and towns.
