Remove Residential parking minimums

What are residential parking minimums?

Many local governments, including the City of Atlanta, require that residential properties have a minimum number of parking spaces. These requirements, called “parking minimums,” were originally designed to ensure abundant parking but now contribute to soaring housing costs and a far greater supply of parking than is needed. These requirements also reenforce a pattern of car-dependency in the city which can add significant monthly costs to households that have limited alternate transportation options.

In Atlanta, single-family homes are currently required to have a minimum of two parking spaces, and smaller (two or three story) multifamily properties must have at least 0.5 parking spaces for each housing unit, increasing the cost of housing construction in areas where residents do not want or need additional parking or the associated costs.

What would the proposed ordinance do?

The proposed ordinance would eliminate minimum residential parking requirements in all of the city’s primary zoned districts, except R1-R3, meaning there would be no requirement to create parking for residential uses in the vast majority of the city.

What would the proposed ordinance not do?

The proposed ordinance doesn’t impact existing parking requirements for non-residential uses (i.e. commercial, retail), Special Public Interest (SPI) districts, R1-R3 districts and other special zoning districts. It also doesn’t change existing parking maximums in any zoning district.

How do residential parking minimums restrict the production of new affordable housing?

Current residential parking minimums add significant cost to new housing development in Atlanta. This added cost directly impacts the cost of housing construction. And the cost to add required parking to large apartment buildings can be as much as the price to build a new unit in the building. These costs are normally passed on to renters and homeowners in their monthly rent or through an additional parking fee.

Housing developers in many cities can attribute 18 to 20 percent of their totals costs to meeting minimum parking requirements, often to the tune of about $40,000 per parking space or an added cost of around $125/month or $4/day for residents (Speck, 2012).

By eliminating residential parking minimums, the cost to produce housing can be lowered, which in turn can allow for more affordable rents and housing purchase prices. The market, rather than government regulation, should determine the amount of parking spaces that are needed.

Where will people park if there’s no minimum required parking for new residential construction? Won’t this lead to greater congestion, traffic and inaccessibility?

Residential parking minimums have been found to contribute to more parking supply than is needed. Research shows that housing developers tend to build the parking that is required by regulation, which is higher than the actual amount demanded (Gabbe, Pierce, & Clowers, 2020; McDonnell, Madar & Been, 2011).

In other words, the elimination of minimum residential parking requirements in Atlanta won’t eliminate the development of parking. It’ll just allow for a more market-based approach to meeting the demand for parking in many residential areas. And in turn, this will help lower housing development costs, and residential rents and home prices for certain developments.