Eliminating Parking Minimums
Zoning Practice — June 2017
By Benjamin LeRoy
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For decades, many American planners unquestioningly applied minimum off-street parking requirements to projects of every conceivable size, type, and context. Meanwhile, a wealth of data-oriented research has produced a growing consensus within the planning profession that the traditional approach to requiring automobile parking produces more harm than good.
In response, cities and counties have begun chipping away at their parking requirements with a variety of techniques, such as shared parking formulas and fees-in-lieu of parking. While these incremental steps have generally proven popular with developers, relatively few communities have taken the bolder step of eliminating parking requirements in part or in full.
This issue of Zoning Practice explains the need for parking reform, profiles recent reform efforts in three cities, and presents a series of strategies to help planners make the case for eliminating off-street parking requirements to residents and elected officials.
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About the Author
Benjamin LeRoy
Ben LeRoy teaches land use and local government law at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in both the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and the College of Law. He launched an independent zoning consulting practice at the beginning of 2023. Ben serves as the co-chair of the APA-IL Legislative Committee and sits on the APA-ISS Executive Committee as Past Officer. Ben previously worked for the City of Champaign, most recently as Zoning Administrator, and volunteers as co-director of the Illinois Zoning Atlas, a subsidiary of the National Zoning Atlas.