Given that parking standards are expected to be one of the main topics addressed in land use bills at the state legislature this upcoming session, I came across a particularly relevant study that nonetheless has me thinking, “Really?  It has that big of an effect?”

The study was by ECOnorthwest, a 50-year old think tank that does a lot of different kinds of policy issue studies.  The study was done in conjunction with Colorado’s governor’s administration, titled Colorado Land Use Policy & Greenhouse Gas Co-benefits Study.  It looked at a variety of different land use strategies and their impact on greenhouse gas emissions (that’s the very shortened version of the study – there’s a lot more to it).  One of the, to me, surprising conclusions, as described in a report on the study by the Siteline Institute, another policy thinktank – Parking Reform Alone Can Boost Homebuilding by 40 to 70 Percent.

A few excerpts:

Compared to other zoning reforms such as legalizing ADUs or increasing building heights near transit, parking reform proved to be two to three times more effective at boosting housing supply.

Really?  I find that hard to fit into my experience with land use and development.  But hey, there’s a study…

More:

The increase in potential homes was primarily driven by already-feasible multifamily buildings increasing the number of apartments beyond what existing parking ratios would have allowed. “A small number of projects make the majority of the impact,”

Sightline has reported on builders around the Pacific Northwest doing just that. After parking mandates were eliminated in Beaverton, Oregon, local architect Gene Templeton redesigned his small apartment building to create 13 homes instead of 9. In Bellingham, Washington, the first new building permitted since mandates were repealed in Old Town, now unconstrained by the size of the parking lot, was designed with twice as many homes than would have been allowed before.

I’ve got to do some more serious digging into the study itself and maybe find some others, but it’s an interesting and intriguing new milepost.  I recall that when I was at Salt Lake City, the massive redevelopment of the Sugar House area was just getting underway.  One of the persistent complaints/feedback we would get from existing residents in the area was, that as new apartment buildings were built, all their on-street parking availability disappeared, making life a lot tougher in that regard.  Hmmm.  I was just in New York last week, and the scene of streets completely full with parked cars in mid-rise residential areas made you wonder…  Yet I do think we require too much parking in many of our land use ordinances, especially for commercial uses.  But, …. Hmmm.  Need to do some noodling on this.