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The effect of minimum parking requirements on the housing stock
Abstract
The cost of parking is in many cities subsidized and instead channelled through higher housing prices, wages, taxes, etc. The effects on other markets are principally well known, but the work on the area is limited. In this paper, we study how parking norms affect the size of the housing stock. Our analysis is based on a model of the rental, asset- and construction markets, the results are quality-assured by interviews with market actors. Prices and profits are affected when constructors are forced, through parking norms, to build more parking spaces than the customers demand. Parking norms reduce the housing stock by 1.2% and increase rents by 2.4% (SEK 300) in our example suburb.
... As negative impacts of parking requirements, like rising housing prices and car ownership levels, have become more apparent, some cities adapted their parking requirements by replacing or complementing minimum requirements with maximum numbers of allowed parking spaces [1][2][3]. Even though parking requirements represent a powerful tool for cities to influence off-street parking supply, their definition Page 2 of 15 Merten and Kuhnimhof European Transport Research Review (2024) 16:59 is often based on vague data or unrealistic and non-cityspecific assumptions [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Given this context, the following research questions arise: To what extent do the current residential parking requirements align with the actual parking demand? ...
... Many scientific studies deal with various, both direct and indirect impacts of parking requirements. Several studies show that minimum residential parking requirements affect the housing market, as the construction of parking spaces increases overall construction costs and leads to fewer residential developments being realised [4]. These effects in turn increase housing costs for owners and tenants [4,14,15]. ...
... Several studies show that minimum residential parking requirements affect the housing market, as the construction of parking spaces increases overall construction costs and leads to fewer residential developments being realised [4]. These effects in turn increase housing costs for owners and tenants [4,14,15]. In comparison to on-street parking, off-street parking spaces have lower efficiency in land use, occupancy and cost, which is partially caused by the necessity for access lanes and the restriction of accessibility to one user group or even single households [16]. ...
Minimum residential parking requirements exist in most European cities to regulate the number of off-street parking spaces built for new or converted residential buildings. As minimum parking requirements can have various negative impacts, they are controversially discussed and increasingly complemented or replaced by maximum requirements in several cities around the world. This paper evaluates the adequacy of residential minimum and maximum parking requirements in 12 mid-sized cities in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. By calculating the number of required parking spaces and by comparing this required supply to the estimated parking demand, we evaluate the impacts and possible steering effects of parking standards. We base our estimations on a hypothetical scenario, in which all existing residential buildings comply with the requirements and use the number of registered cars as a proxy for residential parking demand.
Our results reveal great differences between the cities’ parking standards. Some cities have minimum requirements, which would lead to a parking supply exceeding the current parking demand in large, mainly densely-populated and centrally located areas. These requirements would result in an oversupply of off-street parking at the place of residence of more than 50% of all residents, which in some areas would even exceed the parking demand by a factor of 2. In contrast to that, other cities have quite stringent requirements, which fall well below the current parking demand at the place of residence of 64 to 81% of all residents. Some of these restrictive cities complement their minimum parking requirements with additional measures by enforcing maximum requirements, limiting access to parking permits or reducing the overall parking capacity. Based on these findings, we discuss the adequacy of the parking requirements, their likely underlying objectives and their possible impacts on future urban development.
... Minimum parking standards have been criticised for leading to urban sprawl, extensive land use, increased construction and living costs, fewer flats, as well as to increased car use and consequently higher CO 2 emissions (Shoup, 1997;Marsden, 2014;Liljenström et al., 2015;Andersson et al., 2016;Christiansen et al., 2017;Millard-Ball et al., 2020;Franko, 2020). For instance, Millard-Ball et al. (2020) show that more on-site parking spaces lead to higher car ownership and car driving in San Francisco, and that these effects are not due to self-selection biases. ...
... One of the arguments against minimum parking standards is that they lead to parking being subsidized by those not owning a car (Shoup, 1997: Franko, 2020Andersson et al. 2016). Minimum standards steer towards an increased supply of parking, which leads to lower parking fees. ...
... The parking spaces are open for rent to everyone and are no longer connected to a specific property. This, together with regulated on-street parking, led to a removal of parking subsidies and made it possible to reduce the rents with approximately 300 SEK per month (Andersson et al., 2016). Other property owners and homeowners' associations followed suit. ...
Current European parking policies do not seem to steer towards a future where urban transport meets the climate goals. Prominent in current housing and parking policies are the so-called minimum parking standards. Recent research has shown that they contribute to increased car use and consequently to higher CO2 emissions. This is because they contribute to urban sprawl, extensive land use, increased housing and infrastructure construction costs, and that they restrict the number of flats per urban land unit. Other recent research shows that the construction of underground garages causes considerable CO2 emissions. This paper is based on previous research on the development of the transport sector to be in line with climate targets (i.e., the Paris Agreement). It intends to fill a research gap regarding how parking management can be designed to be consistent with these targets. Through a future study approach with Stockholm as a case example, this paper illustrates a policy shift in parking policies considered to be in line with national climate targets. The article presents concrete indicators to quantify the scope of change needed (e.g., removing 60,000 residential parking spaces and providing vehicle sharing with 7,500 cars and at least 7,500 bikes). The focus shift goes from providing physical parking spaces to providing satisfactory mobility and accessibility. We outline a pathway towards a future scenario of parking and mobility in Stockholm, with a combination of mobility services, parking restrictions (e.g., cap on parking spaces, removal of minimum parking standards), and citizen participation. The pathway is also analysed regarding equity, feasibility, and acceptance.
... Previous research has explored the impact of minimum residential parking requirements on various aspects, including car ownership and use (Mayor of London, 2017;Weinberger, 2012), parking supply (Gabbe et al., 2020;Guo and Ren, 2013), housing prices (Andersson et al., 2016;Gabbe and Pierce, 2017;Jia and Wachs, 1999) and housing stock (Andersson et al., 2016;Manville, 2013). However, little research has been undertaken to assess how variations to minimum residential parking requirements compare against levels of existing parking demand (Marsden, 2006). ...
... Previous research has explored the impact of minimum residential parking requirements on various aspects, including car ownership and use (Mayor of London, 2017;Weinberger, 2012), parking supply (Gabbe et al., 2020;Guo and Ren, 2013), housing prices (Andersson et al., 2016;Gabbe and Pierce, 2017;Jia and Wachs, 1999) and housing stock (Andersson et al., 2016;Manville, 2013). However, little research has been undertaken to assess how variations to minimum residential parking requirements compare against levels of existing parking demand (Marsden, 2006). ...
... In terms of their effects on housing, Andersson et al. (2016) found that minimum parking requirements reduce housing stock by 1.2% and increase rents by 2.4%, based on an example suburb in Sweden. Using data from the national American Housing Survey, Gabbe and Pierce (2017) found that the cost of garage parking to renter households represented an additional 17% of a housing unit's rent. ...
Minimum off-street residential parking requirements are used in many cities as a way to accommodate parking demand associated with new residential development. In some cases, variations to these requirements are used in the form of reduced (or eliminated) minimums and/or maximum parking requirements to more actively manage parking demand. This paper assesses how such variations affecting new residential apartment development in Melbourne, known locally as parking overlays, compare against residential parking demand. Using household car ownership data as a proxy for off-street residential parking demand, a case-control analysis was undertaken to compare car ownership within and immediately outside areas affected by the parking overlays, while controlling for a range of built environment, public transport, demand management and socio-demographic variables. Key findings indicate that car ownership is generally lower in areas affected by parking overlays, yet this was either roughly the same or well below the actual parking requirement. Through regression modelling, the results highlighted the importance of public transport service quality, car parking requirements and demographics in influencing car ownership within and immediately outside the parking overlay areas. These results were used to develop a parking overlay index to identify other areas that could benefit from more flexible residential parking requirements. Despite parking overlays considered as a form of parking management, the results imply that, in Melbourne, they represent little more than a conventional supply-side approach to parking policy. The results indicate that residential off-street parking requirements could be reduced further in Melbourne, both within and outside of areas affected by parking overlays, to more actively manage parking demand.
... In academic literature, parking oversupply has been heavily criticised for reducing the relative appeal of public and active transport (Shoup 1999;Marsden 2006;Rowe et al. 2010;Weinberger 2012;Manville 2013;McCahill and Garrick 2014;Millard-Ball 2015;Young and Miles 2015;Andersson 2016;Gabbe and Pierce 2017). Several comments, such as the following, suggest that some members of the public are aware of these critiques: ...
... Historically, people have overlooked the fact that parking may displace more productive land uses. Indeed, unproductive parking requires costly maintenance, stretches the urban form, and increases building costs thus creating a feedback loop of auto-dependence (Shoup 2005;Litman 2006;Manville 2017;Andersson et al. 2016). Notably, the cost of off-street parking is typically bundled with housing construction costs (Marsden 2006). ...
Public views and perceptions surrounding parking demand and supply in Australian cities remain underexplored in the academic literature. In this exploratory study, we draw on written and oral qualitative data to set forth popular narratives and sentiments on parking supply and demand. We reveal two competing storylines. The first and more traditional one casts (free) parking as a “birthright” that is to be retained at all cost. The second and more recent storyline – which aligns closely to the position of contemporary planners – casts cars and parking as a “scourge” to be combated in order to restore urban liveability. We conclude that the emergence of this more recent storyline bodes well for the sustainability of urban areas.
... Critics note that parking minimums can disadvantage individuals that forgo or cannot afford car ownership by forcing them to purchase parking they do not need. For instance, parking minimums inflate residential construction by 13 percent and renting by 17 percent (Andersson et al., 2016;Gabbe and Pierce, 2017), and shopping centre construction by 67-97 percent (surface vs. underground parking). These costs in turn are embedded in property, goods, services, and rents (Shoup, 2011). ...
... While theories for the benefits of parking are plentiful, theories against can be found in similar measure (Marshall, Garrick, & Hansen 2008). Critics argue that the parking minimums used typically lack a rigorous evidence base (Andersson 2016;Shoup 1999;Millard-Ball 2015) or are little more than the ad nauseam reproduction of the Institute of Transportation Engineers' 1987 Trip Generation Manual that was calibrated for low density suburban development (Shoup 2005). In an attempt to predict peak parking demand, this manual was calibrated for 87 distinct land use types but could not account for site specifics such as store popularity, merchandise type, and adjacent land use types (Shoup 2010;Inci 2015;Rowe, Bae, & Shen 2010). ...
Together, globalisation and urbanisation are accelerating the densification of cities while disruptive technologies such as micro-mobility and ride-hailing are transforming urban mobility. Amidst this change, urban planning officials and practitioners typically remain constrained to the same urban footprint, left to grapple with earlier car-oriented development, and yet must accommodate a growing population and variety of travel modes operating within the same space. Further, they must operate alongside government officials whose re-election could depend upon appeasing suburban residents that are unable or unwilling to relocate along active transport corridors, near public transit nodes, or forgo the flexibility and comfort of private automobiles. As a result, private automobiles can become necessary for traversing urban forms already enlarged by parking, driveways, roads, highways, and flyovers. Likewise, alternatives such as public and active transport can become impractical and dangerous within urban forms that are fragmented by congestion or fast traffic. Given that urban mobility research typically focuses on keeping our pre-existing modal choices moving rather than the side-effects, daily commutes have remained unchanged for decades, and planners are better equipped to continually accommodate rather than influence our modal choices. This volume of Progress in Planning aims to strengthen the evidence base for influencing modal choice by developing a comparative framework of urban mobility, and by examining how parking policy has influenced modal choice within the three largest Australian cities: Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. In addition, it provides reproducible methods for estimating parking supply using land use audits, parking demand using a population census, and geo-statistical modelling for determining whether and where parking policy can explain more sustainable modal choices. As such, this volume sets a research agenda for metropolitan-scale examination and coordination of transport and land use planning for sustainable rather than temporary urban mobility.
... One main argument for these so-called minimum parking requirements is that they prevent parked cars from competing for and taking up too much space on adjacent streets [2] and help to create ample parking for expected future car ownership [3]. They have increasingly been criticized for not taking the costs of building and maintaining parking into account [2], using too much space [4], making apartment construction more difficult [5], resulting in impermeable parking surfaces contributing to storm-water runoff as a source of water pollution and flooding [6], stimulating increased car use [7,8], and not necessarily achieving their intended effect of relieving crowded on-street parking [9], because if curb parking is free of charge or cheaper than off-street parking, residents may tend to park on the street anyway. American studies have identified that parking generally is an oversupplied resource in The specific results, regarding the experience and travel practices of residents, reported in this paper indicate that the interviewees-habitual users of public transport as well as car drivers-found the travel modes satisfactory for everyday use while car-drivers solved their parking situation. ...
Despite ongoing changes in housing construction around parking requirements, few studies have been undertaken on travel practice and vehicle ownership once homes have been built in line with new requirements and occupied. This study focused on the experience and travel practices of residents in two specific cases involving new requirements in Sweden. It was based on interviews and questionnaires with residents before and after they moved into the two new blocks of apartments. A relatively restricted supply of parking was compensated for with subsidized mobility services for the residents, e.g., car and bike (sharing) clubs. The results indicated a decrease in car ownership in both blocks, as well as a decrease in the frequency of car travel in one of them. There were indications that use of public transport had increased. Our analysis illustrates the roles that parking and mobility services played over time in establishing the residents’ travel habits. The process that shaped the new residents’ car ownership and travel patterns was, in part, quite slow and unspectacular compared with the intentions and expectations of the stakeholders involved as regards to how car ownership and travel habits would change. We discuss a spectrum of everyday life conditions, which together with parking requirements and mobility services can stimulate the growth of urban mobility practices other than those based on private car ownership.
Drawing upon Flyvbjerg's (1998) insight that planning is defined more by the political than the rational, we examine the experience of parking reform, as attempted by municipal officials, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The literature offers a broad consensus that minimum parking requirements represent a misguided and inefficient policy producing excess parking in the wrong places and reduced housing affordability. Yet minimum parking requirements remain a near-universal fixture in municipal regulations. We examine the stubborn disconnect between Vancouver’s parking standards and its strategic policies. Rather than reiterating normative debates, we consider how ideas and institutions could shape officials’ hesitation in reform. We reveal the compromise that ensues under planning's duality of designing credible, forward-looking strategy while managing the political constraints created by policy path dependence. We find that Vancouver’s laneway housing parking requirement represents a typology that could propagate across North America: a transitional parking requirement of political compromise, which, we suggest, has the potential to produce a workable reconciliation of theory and practice.
This article is dedicated to determination of the development peculiarities of the current Moscow region residential property market. It is advised to consider Moscow and the Moscow Oblast as a unified Moscow region with the coinciding and (or) corresponding aims and tasks for town-planning development. It was proved that nowadays it is necessary to build residential property and provide residential areas with the required parking lots for dwellers’ comfort. The article shows the advantages and disadvantages of underground parking lots arrangement at residential property construction, including the problems at their commissioning. Here is proved the prospect of underground parking lots arrangement in residential areas.
Problem, research strategy, and findings: Zoning laws that require onsite parking spaces with every residential unit arguably inhibit housing development in center cities and make housing that is built both more uniform and expensive. I test this idea using data from a natural experiment in Los Angeles. In 1999, Los Angeles freed old vacant commercial and industrial buildings in its downtown from all parking requirements if converted to residential use. Using both an original survey and interviews with planners and developers I first document the extent to which these buildings were turned into housing, then compare parking provision at these converted buildings with parking requirements for other downtown housing. I find that developers used deregulation to create thousands of housing units in previously disinvested areas of downtown Los Angeles and departed substantially from conventional parking zoning, mainly by providing parking offsite. I also find strong evidence that units in deregulated buildings are less likely to offer parking, and mixed support for the idea that units without parking are smaller and offered at lower prices.
Many cities throughout the United States require developers of new residential construction to provide a minimum number of accompanying off-street parking spaces. However, critics argue that these requirements increase housing costs by bundling an oversupply of parking with new housing and by reducing the number of units developers could otherwise fit on a given lot. Furthermore, the requirements reduce the subsequent direct costs of car ownership by forcing up-front, or subsidizing, consumption of parking spaces, which leads to increases in auto-use and its related externalities. Such critics advocate eliminating or at least reducing the requirements to be more responsive to locational context, particularly proximity to transit. In this article, we explore the theoretical objections to minimum parking requirements and the limited empirical literature. We then use lot-level data and GIS to analyze parking requirements in New York City to determine to what extent they are already effectively sensitive to transit proximity. Finally, we examine developer response to parking requirements by comparing the number of spaces that are actually built to the number required by applicable zoning law. Our results indicate that the per-unit parking requirement in New York is, on average, lower in areas near rail transit stations, but the required number of spaces per square foot of lot area is higher, on average, in transit accessible areas. We also find that by and large, developers tend to build only the bare minimum of parking required by zoning, suggesting that the minimum parking requirements are binding for developers, as argued by critics, and that developers do not simply build parking out of perceived marked need. Our results raise the possibility that even in cities with complex and tailored parking requirements, there is room to tie the requirements more closely to contextual factors. Further, such changes are likely to result in fewer parking spaces from residential developers.
Consider a transport facility in steady state that is operating at maximum throughput. How does it respond to a once-and-for-all increase in demand? The trip price must increase to ration the increased demand, but how? These questions have been the subject of a debate in transport economic theory dating back to Walters’ classic paper (1961). The current wisdom is that the facility continues to operate at full capacity, with travel at reduced velocity and/or increased queuing serving to increase the trip price. This paper analyzes the transient dynamics and stability of steady states for a spatially uniform road network with on-street parking, and finds in this context that the increase in demand may cause operation at reduced throughput.
Residential parking requirements specify the number of parking spaces that must be provided when new residential units are built. This paper examines the way such parking requirements influence housing affordability. The provision of parking spaces requires land, building materials and equipment which increase the price of housing. On the other hand, off-street parking requirements are said to be needed to prevent streets overcrowded with parked cars. In a case study of six neighborhoods in the City of San Francisco, this study investigated the influence on housing affordability of code-required parking. A hedonic model was fit to data describing housing and neighborhood characteristics in order to statistically explain the sales price of housing units that changed hands in those neighborhoods in 1996. The analysis revealed that single family houses and condominiums were more than ten percent more costly if they included off-street parking than if they did not. Based on the selling prices and the distribution of incomes of San Francisco residents, it was estimated that tens of thousands of additional households could qualify for home mortgages for units without off-street parking if those units could legally be provided under zoning and subdivision ordinances. The policy implications of this finding include the possible consideration of alternative forms of regulation regarding the provision of off-street parking in residential projects.
This paper addresses and extends upon the recent upsurge of interest in market-oriented reform of parking policy, which has been reinvigorated by the work of Donald Shoup. His market-oriented approach to parking policy is shown to be the more ambitious of two distinct challenges to the conventional supply-focused approach. The other is 'parking management'. However, off-street parking markets and their post-reform dynamics have been neglected so far in proposals to deregulate the quantity of off-street parking. The paper highlights additional barriers to the emergence of off-street parking markets and several likely problems within them. Rather than suggesting the rejection of market-oriented parking policy, these findings are taken to imply a need for a more vigorous policy effort than has so far been called for. Achieving well-functioning off-street parking markets would require efforts both to actively foster such markets and to regulate to ensure their health. Deregulation would not be enough.
The price of parking is often considered an important tool with which to influence transport choice but, since many local authorities have limited control over off-street charges and since parking charges have no direct impact on through traffic, its influence on overall travel demand may be limited. Road user charges, on the other hand, do appear to offer an effective means of influencing overall demand. The problem is that public acceptance of such charges is low unless some obvious “carrot” can be identified. This paper explores the possibility that the removal of parking charges might be that “carrot”. Our analysis suggests that, although the removal of parking charges would reduce revenues and dilute the reduction in demand caused by the introduction of road charges, the combined effect might, in certain circumstances, be more beneficial to the local economy and might still yield a net increase in revenue. Given the incidence of impacts, it also appears that a combined scheme would be more equitable and might stand a greater chance of achieving public acceptance than a more conventional road charging scheme. The paper identifies the circumstances in which a combined scheme might work well and outlines the detailed analysis that would be necessary to confirm this.
Consider a shopper or tourist driving downtown and trying to park. Two strategies are usually available: either park at a private off-street facility or search for a cheaper on-street spot. We formalise such a setting and use the model to study optimal government regulation of the on-street parking market. It is shown that the optimal on-street fee equals the marginal cost of off-street supply at the optimal quantity. If the off-street market is supplied under constant returns to scale, this provides a particularly simple operational rule: the price on street should match that off street. We also extend the model to consider maximum length of stay restrictions and non-competitive private supply. A numerical model, calibrated to central London, investigates the magnitude of an optimal fee.
This paper is the first to empirically examine the residents’ willingness to pay for on-street parking permits as well as the cost of cruising using an identification methodology based on house prices for Amsterdam. The residents’ cost of cruising is about €1 per day. The residents’ willingness to pay for a parking permit is about €10 per day.
This article contains an economic analysis of regulatory parking policies as a substitute to road pricing. The scope for such policies is discussed, after which a simple diagrammatic analysis is presented, focusing on the differences between the use of parking fees and physical restrictions on parking space supply. The former is found to be superior for three reasons: an information argument, a temporal efficiency argument and an intertemporal efficiency argument. Finally, a spatial parking model is developed, showing that it may be possible to overcome the difficulty of regulatory parking policies not differentiating according to distance driven by specifying the appropriate spatial pattern of parking fees, making individuals respond to (spatial) parking fee differentials.
This paper presents a simple model of parking congestion focusing on drivers' search for a vacant parking space in a spatially homogeneous metropolis. The mean density of vacant parking spaces is endogenous. A parking externality arises because individuals neglect the effect of their parking on this mean density. We examine stochastic stationary-state equilibria and optima in the model. Due to the model's nonlinearity, multiple equilibria may exist and the effects of parking fees are complex. Several extensions are discussed, including determining the social value of a particular parking information system.
This paper is the first to look at cruising for parking from an economic perspective. We present a downtown parking model that integrates traffic congestion and saturated on-street parking; the stock of cars cruising for parking adds to traffic congestion. Two major results emerge from the model, one of which is robust. The robust one is that, whether or not the amount of on-street parking is optimal, it is efficient to raise the on-street parking fee to the point where cruising for parking is eliminated without parking becoming unsaturated. The other is that, if the parking fee is fixed at a sub-optimal level, it is second-best optimal to increase the amount of curbside allocated to parking until cruising for parking is eliminated without parking becoming unsaturated
Congestion can be caused by through-traffic and by traffic destined for the area where consumers park. It may appear that congestion should be reduced by increasing the price of parking. This paper shows that if road usage is suboptimally priced, then a lump-sum parking fee can increase welfare, but a parking fee per unit time does not. Indeed, an increase in the price of parking induces each person to park for a shorter time, allows more persons to use parking spaces each day, and can thereby increase traffic. For the same reason, consumers may prefer that parking not be free.
Collateral impacts of LULUCF projects, especially those concerning social and environmental aspects, have been recognised as important by the Marrakech Accords. The same applies to the necessity of assessing and, if possible, of quantifying the magnitude of these impacts. This article aims to define, clarify and structure the relevant social, economic and environmental issues to be addressed and to give examples of indicators that ought to be included in the planning, design, implementation, monitoring, and ex post evaluation of LULUCF projects. This is being done by providing a conceptual framework for the assessment of the sustainability of such projects that can be used as a checklist when dealing with concrete projects, and that in principle is applicable to both Annex I and non-Annex I countries. Finally, a set of recommendations is provided to further develop and promote the proposed framework.