No new bills out in the last day or two, so, with apologies to Stephen Colbert, MEANWHILE…

There are some interesting things popping.  First is the promise of a bill to reform parking requirements in local land use codes, at least in proximity to transit.  The proposal is described in this story in the Trib.  I have to say, I didn’t see this particular proposal coming.

Rep. Robert Spendlove, R-Sandy, has put in a request to legislative attorneys for a bill called “Local Government Parking Requirements, and he says the intent is threefold. “The idea is to have more walkable communities, more affordable housing and less government regulation.”

There has been a lot of discussion about reducing parking requirements in transit station areas as was done to some degree in last year’s HB462, and in the limited modifications to the station area plan requirements in this year’s bills (there may be some more coming).  But according to the Trib story, the proposal by Rep. Spendlove would go way beyond what has been done so far.

Around the country, reform of parking requirements is increasingly being seen as one of the chief ways to help housing affordability.  In this piece from January’s Planning magazine titled What Is Zoning Reform and Why Do We Need It?, part of the subtitle says “six zoning reform tactics that could help curb housing costs.”  The second listed strategy is “abolishing parking minimums,” and highlights several cities around the country where parking minimums have been eliminated or drastically curtailed.

So this new proposal seems to fit right into that national conversation.  Even locally, a few years ago while I was working at Salt Lake County we brought in Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking to do a workshop on this topic. But legislatively, this is not something that has been talked about much beyond the SAP initiatives.  It will be interesting to see where this goes.

MEANWHILE, earlier this week, National APA and the National League of Cities jointly announced a Partnership to Accelerate & Incentivize Diverse Housing Supply (here’s the League’s press release on the announcement).  The announcement says,

APA and NLC will convene local government officials, community planners, builders, financial institutions, housing policy associations as well as state and federal partners to develop, align, and advance locally-driven housing supply solutions.

This solutions-oriented campaign will provide model practices, ordinances and actionable resources to help local communities address their unique housing challenges. These efforts will be designed for immediate implementation by local leaders, planners and others working to combat the housing crisis.

So, now APA and the League are formally allied on the housing affordability crisis.  I talked to Utah League Executive Director Cameron Diehl about this a couple of weeks ago, I’ve asked him for a statement about it which I’ll pass along as soon as I get it.  He’s rather busy at the moment up on The Hill!

I’ve got some more stuff, but I think this is enough for today, I’ll save it for another day.