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Austin set to eliminate minimum off-street parking mandate

15 May 2023

by Christopher Carey

The City Council in Austin, Texas has approved a resolution to eliminate minimum off-street parking requirements citywide, except those for people living with disabilities.

The move requires city staff to develop and submit a proposed ordinance to the Council by 31 December, including recommendations for “developments proposing no on-site parking that allow for accessible parking spaces on-street, adjacent to or reasonably nearby the development and located on an accessible route.”

Council Member Zo Qadri, who authored the resolution, said the city’s building code made it difficult to make progress on affordable housing, climate and transportation initiatives by requiring parking that takes up valuable space.

“I think our priorities should be allowing space for people rather than mandating space for cars,” said Qadri.

Simplifying parking

Apartment complexes in Austin base parking on the number of bedrooms per unit, while commercial spaces use square footage.

The move will simplify the code citywide by eliminating the requirements altogether and giving developers, small business owners and others the flexibility to build parking as they see fit.

This is not the first time the city has eliminated parking mandates – in 2013, the Council axed parking requirements for the downtown area.

Qadri tried to ease concerns that the new measure would lead to parking shortages, noting that developers still provided sufficient parking downtown after the mandate in 2013.

The plans did not enjoy universal support however, with Council Member Alison Alter voting against it, saying the measure would “initiate essentially the universal elimination of parking requirements.”

“We need to think hard about how we are moving forward with land development code amendments,” said Alter.

“We need to consider what is going to be the most bang for our bucks in terms of code amendments. I think we need to be a little bit more focused and strategic about what we are doing.”

Sustainability

But Qadri maintained the resolution was necessary to build on the city’s sustainability objectives.

“Our decades-old policy of top-down parking prescriptions has helped make Austin an overparked, sprawling, car-dependent city,” he added.

“Taking them out of our code will help us achieve our goals of being a safer, more accessible, affordable and sustainable community.”

Over the past few years, Austin has prioritised improving public transportation, including investing millions of dollars in bike lanes, road improvements and bus services.

This is set to be expanded through its Project Connect initiative, which has a price tag that has grown from US$7.1 billion to US$11.6 billion and includes light rail.

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