Newsom signed major California climate package. But what about ‘no-brainer’ parking reform?
When Gov. Gavin Newsom stood in front of cameras in a Vallejo parking lot on Friday to celebrate a sweeping package of new climate legislation, some environmentalists and urban planners noticed that one bill was conspicuously missing — Assembly Bill 2097.
The measure, authored by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, aims to make California less car-dependent and more environmentally friendly by rethinking parking in the state that largely created the American mentality that cars are king.
Specifically, AB 2097, which remains on the governor’s desk, would eliminate parking requirements for new housing developments and businesses located within a half-mile of a public transit stop. The legislation wouldn’t ban developers from building parking — as most likely still will — but it would prohibit local jurisdictions from imposing blanket, arbitrary off-street parking requirements.
Proponents of California’s proposed parking reform say that shedding the outdated zoning rules would reduce reliance on vehicles, increase housing production by reducing costs, make it safer for walkers and bikers to get around and lessen the impact on the environment.
Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the UC Berkeley School of Law, calls it “California’s most important climate bill.”
“In the minds of the public, and I guess politicians, I don’t think they really associate real estate development with climate change fighting technology,” Elkind said. “But the fact is, we’re not building the kinds of neighborhoods that we need for the future, which is compact, walkable communities built in areas without risk of wildfire harm and sea level rise.
“Parking requirements are a major obstacle to that type of development getting built. ... It’s a no-brainer.”
Studies reveal that these mandatory parking requirements often create an over-supply of parking spots, which fuel increased vehicle ownership, worsening traffic congestion, poor air quality and underutilized land.
In the Bay Area — one of the most expensive areas in the nation to build new construction — there are 15 million parking spaces, or approximately 2.4 spaces for every vehicle, according to a recent study from San Jose State. Meanwhile, required parking can add $36,000 to the cost of constructing a single unit of affordable housing, according to federal data from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.
Newsom traveled Monday to New York to participate in Climate Week NYC. Although he has not yet indicated his stance on the bill, supporters say they’re optimistic that he will sign it before the Sept. 30 deadline.
“There is a growing recognition from people of the seriousness of this issue,” Friedman said about prioritizing parking over housing. “We’re not trying to punish people. We’re trying to make our cities more livable.
“We know how to do it and now we just have to have the political will to make the transition.”
Most cities in California, and across much of the nation, mandate that a residential or commercial building come with a certain number of on-site parking spaces — regardless of whether or not they are needed. The mandates were born out of the post-World War II era when development was booming and America began heavily investing in highways and other automobile infrastructure, which in turn meant investing in parking.
Proposals to eliminate parking requirements near transit have been making their way around the state Capitol for more than a decade, but this is the first time a comprehensive bill has made it to the governor’s desk. In the interim, a handful of cities like San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento, took it upon themselves to get rid of their decades-old parking requirements in transit-rich areas.
Friedman characterized the wave of parking reform and putting trust in developers to “right-size” parking as a “necessary step toward a more sane and sensible and humane and equitable” future.
Meeting housing and climate goals
California is behind on meeting both its environmental and housing goals, including a Newsom’s ambitious pledge to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025.
Supporters of AB 2097 see parking reform as an important piece to both of those puzzles.
“Reducing parking and single occupancy vehicles is really at the center of multiple strategies that we’re trying to address in terms of housing affordability, location efficiency, public transportation and increased ridership and climate change,” said Michael Lane, state policy director for the regional think tank SPUR.
Meanwhile, others worry it could jeopardize certain tools used by local jurisdictions to incentivize construction of affordable units.
Opponents like Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti argue that eliminating parking requirements could deter developers from taking part in the city’s incentive program and from building affordable housing units into their projects.
“Eliminating parking for multi-family projects without a minimum affordability requirement would impact the financial calculus for many development projects — potentially causing them to forgo state and local affordability incentives, reduce the number of restricted affordable units the city is able to produce and decrease the density of our transit oriented development,” Garcetti wrote in a letter to Friedman near the end of session.
In response to those concerns, Friedman and other supporters point to San Diego, where data indicates similar parking reform adopted there had no undermining affect on the city’s density bonus program. Instead, one year after the city abolished parking requirements for housing near transit, the city saw a five-fold increase in the number of units permitted through its incentive program.
Additionally, the bill still allows cities to impose minimum parking minimum requirements in certain situations if they can demonstrate that the project would hinder the city’s ability to meet its affordable housing targets or negatively impact commercial parking in the area.
“We need to house people and we need to do it in the most climate friendly way, which is in-fill housing in our existing urban areas,” Elkind said. “That’s the kind of housing this bill would produce.”
This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 4:26 PM.