UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Every automobile trip starts and ends at a parking space. An upcoming Penn State Extension land-use webinar, “A Case for Communities to Drop Parking Minimums,” will present the experiences of three communities of different sizes that have eliminated parking minimums downtown or throughout the community.
Presenting the 75-minute webinar at noon Jan. 17 will be Shawn Winter, of Traverse City, Michigan; Matthew Pfeufer, of St. Marys, Pennsylvania; and Eric Cousens, of Auburn, Maine.
Various parking options exist, including on-street public parking, off-street public parking, private pay lots, and on-site parking for residents, customers and employees of private developments. Most local governments set minimum parking requirements for every land use, while also offering free on-street parking. These requirements typically ensure that developers will provide enough spaces to meet peak demand for free parking.
In 2006, St. Marys revised its zoning ordinance to remove a requirement for off-street parking for new developments in the downtown commercial zone. In 2019, the ordinance was revised to clarify that, if built, developer parking lots should be as small as possible and are exempt from general parking requirements for the central business district, such as a minimum number of parking spaces. The amendment’s success was driven by persuading the governing body that loosening this restriction would not lead to downtown parking chaos.
Experts in Auburn recognized that longstanding parking requirements were hindering the city’s goals of infill development in urban and evolving suburban areas for more mixed-use with shared parking resources. The implementation of mixed-use, form-based codes in residential areas made this parking obstacle more visible. The city addressed this by removing commercial parking minimums and allowing residential developments to utilize nearby public parking resources to fulfill requirements. This approach has promoted infill development across the developed areas of the city.
Traverse City grappled with the question of where everyone would park, reflecting a decision made decades ago to eliminate downtown parking requirements. This choice was aimed at preventing the demolition of historic buildings caused by developers trying to meet parking minimums. Despite the challenges faced by many downtowns in the 1990s, Traverse City’s downtown remains a regional hub for retail, office, cultural, recreational and residential uses.
The decision to remove parking requirements was paired with a plan to maximize land use by providing stacked parking in decks and repurposing surface lots for higher-value development. Recently, the city expanded this approach citywide by eliminating parking requirements for all residential uses and implementing parking maximums for many commercial uses. Traverse City discovered that, by allowing developers to determine parking rates based on each development’s needs, they could meet parking requirements effectively while avoiding vast, underutilized parking lots. This innovative approach has enabled the city to strike a better balance with other planning priorities.
“A Case for Communities to Drop Parking Minimums” is the first webinar in Penn State Extension’s Winter/Spring 2024 Land-Use Webinar Series. The series is aimed at informing municipal elected and appointed officials, planners, landowners, farmers, and community organizations about land-use issues and decisions in their communities.
All webinars will be recorded for future viewing. Other programs in the series include:
— Feb. 21: “Harnessing Photosynthesis for a Carbon Negative Bioeconomy.”
— March 20: “Defining Nature’s Worth From a Health and Economic Aspect?”
— April 17: “Norris Square Community Profile: A Process for Community Engagement, Capacity Building and Equitable Development.”
— May 15: “Green Infrastructure Planning for Healthier, Resilient Communities.”
The cost of the webinar series is $50 for all five sessions, or $95 for all five sessions for those who want to receive AICP certification-maintenance credits from the American Planning Association. The cost also is $95 for all five sessions for professional engineers needing PDH credits. In addition, registered landscape architects can receive continuing-education credits for a fee of $65.
For anyone interested in a particular topic from the series, individual session registration is available for a fee of $15 per session. Those needing assistance can access a scholarship option.
For more information, contact Peter Wulfhorst at 570-296-3400 or by email at ptw3@psu.edu. To register for the webinars, visit the Penn State Extension website.