A road-tested messaging guide to gain more great neighborhoods and the homes we need, and to kick excess asphalt to the curb.
Blog written by Anna Fahey. Originally posted here by Sightline Institute and reposted here with permission.
Parking mandates reinforce the status quo: systemic transportation inequity that prioritizes moving cars, not connecting people to where they need to go. To build more walkable, connected, and inclusive communities, we need parking reform. This piece from Anna Fahey at Sightline Institute delves into how to message parking reform. Download A Messaging Playbook for Parking Reformers here.
Parking policy shapes our lives. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Today’s rules chronically overprescribe far more parking than people really need. Parking is systematically overbuilt — by law.
First, you’ll begin to notice the vast stretches of empty pavement in your city or town, even in the busiest downtown areas. Wastelands of asphalt, right where something more useful or pleasant or needed could be: a tree, a garden, a preschool’s play yard, or apartments for people who work nearby. Once you’re parking pilled, you’ll see more and more places in your community where buildings are small islands in the middle of concrete seas, where pavement dominates the landscape, and where big box chain stores and highway-like “main drags” have eroded what used to be the particular, local feel of a place. Mile after mile of characterless, cookie-cutter sprawl.
What parking policy impacts you don’t see, you experience.
Parking rules play a sizable role in where people live, how much it costs, and how they get around. All that paved space is expensive. Building parking costs lots of money. The wasted space and added costs are passed on to renters and buyers. And when overbuilt parking just won’t fit on a lot or eats up too much of the project budget, housing simply doesn’t get built, worsening the housing shortage. When there aren’t enough homes, competition for what’s available drives up home prices and rents. Same for small businesses and community services: mandates to overbuild parking can make or break a project, from a mom-and-pop cafe to a daycare.
But we don’t have to do it this way! We can have nice things! We can have more homes in a housing shortage. We can have more daycares in a childcare shortage. We can have more trees and fewer heat islands. We can have inviting neighborhoods where homes and businesses are close by and it’s pleasant and safe, for everybody, from kids to seniors, to stroll with friends, walk the dog, or window shop.
Lifting the one-size-fits-all parking mandates ubiquitous in most city code books today can give businesses, homebuilders, and property owners the flexibility to have the parking they need without wasteful, costly overbuilding. It’s a win-win-win—for people, places, and our pocketbooks—to right-size the amount of parking to the specific site, use, and location of new homes, renovated buildings, or new businesses.
Of course, these wins aren’t always obvious. If you asked a random person on the street whether they’d like more or less parking, most would probably say more. North Americans default to a driver’s perspective, not necessarily a pedestrian’s or a parent’s or a sidewalk cafe patron’s. It’s for good reason; we often have no other choice but to drive. We’re locked in. But when you point out that cities demand more space for parking than the community needs and then tick through the ways that excess costs us all, it quickly looks like common sense for most people that we should use that space for things we want, not for more empty pavement. And it makes sense to most everyone that we should dial the amount of parking to what’s right for the site.
So how do we move people from the driver’s default to a broader view? One that comprises the costs of too much parking and the possibilities beyond it? How do we toggle from “where to park” to “how we live in this place”?
Alongside our partners, including Welcoming Neighbors Network and Parking Reform Network, Sightline Institute has undertaken public opinion polling and qualitative message testing both across the United States and within the Cascadia region, along with on-the-ground experimentation in a handful of local and state efforts, to compile messaging guidelines for lawmakers and advocates working to reform parking rules. Winning parking reform means winning so many other things, too: more of the homes we need, stabilized home prices and rents, more people-friendly places, less red tape, and less of the paved-over sprawl and frustrating commutes that contribute to local air and water pollution and climate change.
Here are our recommendations:
A Messaging Playbook for Parking Reformers
Parking flexibility messaging tips based on road testing in Washington, Oregon, Montana, and elsewhere; and national and regional public opinion research by Sightline Institute and Welcoming Neighbors Network.
Recommended Messaging Strategies
Link excessive parking mandates to high housing costs: Overbuilt parking raises home prices and rents. Outdated mandates for more parking than we need unnecessarily inflate construction costs, waste space, and block homebuilding in cities.
Shift the frame to flexibility: What most cities have now are inflexible parking rules that require arbitrary, predetermined amounts based on building use or housing type. Most reform efforts aim to stop mandating overbuilding by law and switch instead to flexibility for homebuilders and businesses to determine the parking they really need.
Name parking rules as a factor in the housing shortage: Forcing more parking than needed limits homebuilding where communities need more home choices. Too few homes to rent or buy creates cutthroat competition and drives up prices.
Elements of a strong case for parking flexibility:
- Show the status quo is not working. Today’s one-size-fits-all mandates force more parking than needed, adding costs while blocking homes and brick-and-mortar businesses.
- Emphasize that flexibility stops senseless overbuilt parking. Flexibility gives the choice to local homebuilders and businesses, who know the unique, local context and know best what they need to succeed, to dial parking that’s right for their site.
- Reassure that no one is limiting parking. Reforms swap out pre-set quotas for the flexibility to right-size parking and avoid wasteful overbuilding.
- Emphasize the upsides, from curbing housing costs to encouraging local businesses to protecting unique, people-friendly places. We get more of what communities need: more affordable homes and more choices for homebuyers and renters; protections for small businesses, Main Streets, and unique neighborhood character; and more trees and green spaces.
Tag “parking mandates” with a negative descriptor: “Costly parking mandates.” “Unneeded,” “wasteful,” “pre-determined,” “outdated, “one-size-fits-all.”
Show the harmful consequences of today’s parking mandates—concretely:
- They block the housing our communities need: Name specific affordable or senior housing proposals, small-scale projects like backyard cottages, and new apartments for local workers, perhaps a centrally located, rehabbed building or homes fitted to a vacant lot, proposed by small, local homebuilders.
- They block local businesses and community services: Point out familiar, sympathetic examples like daycares, mom-and-pop businesses, and locally owned restaurants. (Contrast with chain stores and big box retail.)
- They pave over beloved community places: Point to examples like an empty shopping mall parking lot near farmland, empty parking lots dividing up a historic downtown, or residential neighborhoods, parks, and playgrounds with lots of asphalt and few trees. Show photos!
Highlight tangible, local environmental downsides: Tree loss, dangerous heat islands, toxic stormwater runoff in local waterways.
Cast parking flexibility as common-sense: Forcing too much parking comes with community costs. It makes far more sense to allow the parking we need and give builders and businesses flexibility to dial the right amount of parking for their unique site.
Avoid language that triggers backlash:
- Don’t open with messages about driving less, reliance on cars, or mode shift and transit. Instead, focus on convenience and paint a picture of safe, inviting, connected neighborhoods—where homes and shops are within walking distance. Research shows that people who are persuadable about parking policy reforms can (rightly) feel stuck about the need to drive and may be defensive if they perceive cars are under attack.
- Shift the emphasis from car storage to wasted space and empty parking lots. People see car storage as necessary. Most can also understand the downsides of mandated excess and the community costs of too much unused asphalt.
- Use “local contractors” and “homebuilders,” not “developers;” and “homebuilding,” not “development.”
Use familiar, relatable words (not jargon):
- Describe “great places to window shop” or “classic Main Street neighborhoods” instead of using terms like “walkability” or “walkable neighborhoods.”
- Use vivid language to define sprawl as undesirable: e.g., “strip-mall development,” “subdivisions,” “acres of empty asphalt,” or “cookie-cutter sprawl.”
Don’t just tell! Show it with photos:
- Illustrate wasted space and excessive parking with photos of empty parking lots.
- Show great places and a city’s unique local character with inviting street scenes. (Contrast with photos cookie-cutter sprawl).
- Show pictures of residential neighborhoods with diverse housing types, trees, greenery, and people out and about.
Talking Points: Tested Parking Messaging
Parking flexibility curbs housing costs and rents
One-size-fits-all parking mandates add costs, take up precious space, and block new homes people need—especially for affordable housing providers and small-scale builders working on tight lots or rehabbing buildings. If the parking won’t fit or if it costs too much, the homes don’t get built. With too few homes, competition drives up prices. Letting homebuilders choose the right amount of parking for the site cuts waste and unlocks homes of all shapes and sizes where our communities need more affordable choices.
Parking flexibility prioritizes people-friendly places
Today’s excessive parking mandates have basically outlawed our favorite kinds of convenient, connected “Main Street” neighborhoods—where shops and homes are in walking distance and buildings aren’t surrounded by lots. As cities and towns grow and change, parking flexibility protects people-friendly places where it’s safe and inviting to window shop or walk the dog, without all the empty pavement.
Parking flexibility fends off the familiar community costs of sprawl
Today’s unnecessary parking mandates prioritize cookie-cutter sprawl over our cities’ and towns’ unique local character. Mandating more parking than our communities really need means more asphalt, more strip-mall development and chain stores, and fewer locally owned mom-and-pop businesses in close-knit, close-in neighborhoods. When it comes to parking rules, flexibility makes more sense than mindless overbuilding.
Parking flexibility rebalances community priorities; less wasted space, more productive uses
Look around. Parking lots sit empty two-thirds of the time in North American cities and towns, and even during the busiest hours, nearly 40 percent of spaces go unused. We already waste so much space on parking lots; it makes no sense to force yet more overbuilt parking, especially when it’s blocking things we need, like more trees and greenery, more locally owned businesses in our downtowns, and more affordable home choices in convenient neighborhoods, near jobs, schools, parks.
Parking flexibility reduces local, tangible environmental harms
To meet today’s wasteful parking mandates, builders often cut down trees or pave over green space. Parking lots collect toxic road runoff that pollutes our local waterways, and they trap heat that can lead to dangerous heat islands.
Parking flexibility boosts local businesses and community opportunities
Outdated parking mandates block things our communities need—like childcare and affordable housing. For example, the space and cost for a required parking lot can make or break a plan for a new daycare, backyard cottage, or local cafe. To support services and small businesses, flexibility makes far more sense than forcing costly overbuilding.
Parking flexibility is commonsense; communities benefit when we dial parking right for each unique site
Parking needs depend on the site, location, and building type. One-size-fits-all mandates are arbitrary, excessive, and ignore real conditions. It makes sense to give businesses and homebuilders the flexibility to fit the amount of parking to actual needs for their specific site, location, and customer and community needs. Standards to allow site-specific flexibility avoid waste, cut costs, and leave room for more homes, shops, and trees in our neighborhoods.
