Paving the Way to Progress: It’s Time to Ditch Minimum Parking Requirements
Collin Hayes
Tops Plaza (in the Village of Avon)
The Town of Avon is pursuing grant funding to overhaul its Zoning Regulations to reflect the vision and goals of our recently adopted Comprehensive Plan. As a member of the Comprehensive Plan Committee and a legal editor by profession, I am confident that my skills and experience will be invaluable in this effort if I am elected to the Town Council.
In a previous post, I discussed how the Town's outdated Zoning Law, adopted more than 30 years ago, is in need of a substantive overhaul to better reflect our current land uses and the types and pace of development we want to encourage. I also discussed how using visual zoning can make our regulations easier to understand for developers and residents and easier to enforce for Town officials.
In this post, I want to discuss another idea that will modernize our zoning regulations, promote more sustainable and environmentally friendly development patterns, and enhance the resiliency of our neighborhoods in the face of increasingly frequent, severe weather events. It’s time to abolish minimum parking requirements.
The Problem With Minimum Parking Requirements
In our current zoning law, you'll see that almost every type of development or land use has minimum parking requirements based on the building's square footage or the number of occupants. These requirements are ostensibly intended to provide adequate parking for the amount of traffic related to the use.
The problem is that these requirements have no basis in reality and are developed from a flawed methodology. The original studies used to develop these requirements measured peak parking occupancy—the maximum number of cars parked at a given time—and used that as the basis for their "parking generation rate." With the best of intentions, planners across the country took these "generation rates" and interpreted them as the minimum number of parking spaces a new development needed to avoid parking spilling over onto the street.
We can see the effects of this flawed approach in our own community:
The Town and Village of Avon zoning laws require one parking space for every 200 square feet of building area.
As a result, the Tops parking lot in the Village of Avon is over three acres and is almost never filled to more than half its capacity. Similarly, the Avon Town Plaza, where the Dollar General is located, is about 2.5 acres and sits vacant.
In the Town of Avon, the East Avon Plaza parking lot is nearly three acres. While it is half full, almost all of the vehicles parked there are buses from Matthews Bus Company, not customers or employees.
I have seen the nonsensical implications of these regulations firsthand as Chair of the Town Planning Board. Last fall, we reviewed an application for an autobody repair shop on Route 15 in East Avon. The existing building was over 9,000 square feet, and our zoning required one parking space per 300 square feet for that use. The applicant was required to show that they could provide parking for 32 cars at a facility that would need parking for, at most, 10 cars between customers and employees. Fortunately for the applicant, the existing parking lot could accommodate that capacity.
Unfortunately for the Town, this means there are 30,000 square feet of impervious surface in East Avon that will go mostly unused. And for applicants who aren't able to comply with the parking requirements, they are forced to create more impervious surface for parking that isn't needed or go through the time-consuming and sometimes expensive process of getting a variance before they can open their business.
Why Are Minimum Parking Requirements Bad?
They're not related to actual parking demands. The flawed methodology they are based on results in an oversupply of parking.
They cause runoff and pollution. Impervious surfaces, whether gravel or pavement, cause runoff, which can lead to flooding on adjacent properties and stormwater pollution from vehicle fluids and salt.
They are expensive. Parking lots, which in most cases are required to be paved, are expensive to build. Those costs are passed down from developers to consumers, tenants, and business owners. The cost of building a parking lot can be a substantial barrier for many who want to start a small business in Avon.
They disturb the natural environment. Dense areas of pavement can create "heat islands" and contribute to poor air quality.
They are an inefficient use of land. Parking lots are often considered "dead weight" in terms of tax productivity, especially if they are unused. Converting that land to housing or commercial space can generate significantly more property tax revenue for the Town and more enjoyable neighborhoods for our residents.
They are unappealing. The land freed up from parking lots can be used for public spaces like parks, pedestrian pathways, and retail storefronts, creating more vibrant, walkable, and appealing neighborhoods.
My Proposal
Given these issues, I believe it's time to move away from minimum parking requirements. Instead, we should establish stricter limits on the maximum percentage of a lot that can be covered with impervious surfaces.
This approach would empower developers and Town officials in the site planning process to create parking plans on a case-by-case basis that reflect the actual need. It would preserve the natural environment and promote safer, more walkable neighborhoods.
