(Sent Sunday, February 6th, 2022.)

We’re thrilled to let you know that on Monday’s City Council agenda, a policy order has been filed by Councillor Azeem (and co-sponsored by Councillors Zondervan and McGovern) to remove minimum off-street parking requirements for new developments!

This has long been an ABC policy priority. Off-street parking mandates make it much, much harder to build new multi-family housing, and increase the cost of that housing when it is built. These mandates reduce open space, incentivize unnecessary car traffic and congestion, and often lead to parking that is inefficiently used. Removing these requirements does not mean new developments will not have parking - rather, it allows new developments to create an amount of parking that makes sense for their future residents and project goals. Increasing parking flexibility in this manner is a planning best practice and has already been done by a number of cities around the country.

Monday’s Council meeting is an initial procedural step. We expect that ending parking minimums will be a months-long process, as typically required for any zoning changes. We will have more to say about this proposal and how you can help as it unfolds. But for now, we want to celebrate this news and encourage you to show some love and support for this policy order by emailing [email protected] and [email protected].