City may ease parking rules in EaDo, Midtown
Some east downtown and Midtown developers no longer would have to provide a minimum number of parking spots if City Council approves a measure exempting parts of those Houston neighborhoods.
An item on Wednesday’s council meeting agenda would expand the use of so-called market-based parking already allowed in the central business district and a small part of east downtown and Midtown. Under the proposal from Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration, property owners in west Midtown and the remaining parts of EaDo also would get to decide how much parking their customers need instead of following guidelines from the city.
Urbanists long have sought elimination of the minimum parking requirements. They argue the guidelines encourage driving at the expense of walking and public transit, and deter developers from building on empty urban land or redeveloping vacant structures due to the cost of providing parking.
Critics also say the requirement produces an excess number of parking lots, which do a poor job of absorbing floodwaters, and is too sweeping to apply to the entire city.
“As a planning commissioner for the last three-and-a-half years, I’ve learned one thing: that in our 669-square-mile city, there is no way that one size fits all for our development code,” real estate broker Bill Baldwin told council members Tuesday. “Regulations for a business on Kingwood Boulevard should be different than those at the corner of Main and McGowen.”
The guidelines, implemented by the city in 1989, were intended to ensure car-dependent Houston provides residents and business patrons with enough parking. The ordinance received broad support, with only two council members opposing it.
Shortly before the vote, then Councilman Jim Greenwood warned of a “future parking cri-
sis,” writing in a Chronicle op-ed that parking minimums “would seem to be as obvious as requiring running water.”
Since then, however, urban research has generally supported scaling back or eliminating parking minimums amid the growing use of ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.
Even before that technology emerged, some research began to advocate for a different approach. A 1999 study at the University of California, Los Anegeles concluded support for minimum parking requirements “is based not on education and science but on motorists' yearning to park free.” Charging people for curb parking instead would “reduce traffic congestion, restrain urban sprawl, conserve natural resources, and produce neighborhood public revenue,” the study found.
Still, some neighborhood leaders have urged the council to reject the administration’s proposal.
Stephen Longmire, president of the First Montrose Commons Neighborhood Association, argued at a March City Council committee meeting that Midtown’s parking needs under a market-based system would overflow to the adjacent Montrose area.
Midtown Super Neighborhood President Cynthina Aceves-Lewis said at the same meeting that her super neighborhood was not given enough time to weigh in on the proposal.
“To just say that, we’re going to let go of the wheel, and let’s see what happens south of McGowen, I think is not prudent,” she said.
To ease local concerns, the planning department’s proposal does not include the portion of Midtown south of McGowen and east of San Jacinto. The change drew criticism at the council’s Tuesday public comment session from Baldwin and Allen Douglas, chair of the Midtown Management District’s urban planning committee.
“The east side carve-out exacerbates the already balkanized nature of Midtown,” Douglas said to council members. “The proposal separates the developed mixed-use west side from the less developed east side of Midtown.”
Douglas asked the council to delay voting on the item or amend it to put east Midtown back into the area exempted from parking requirements. Turner shot down both suggestions, but said he would favor including the east side later if the change works well on the west side of the neighborhood.
“We’re just trying to reach a sweet spot,” Turner said. “We’ll see how it works, and then, if things work well for the other area, then certainly we’ll cover that remaining section.”
The city’s parking requirements vary by building type. Offices must provide 2.5 parking spots for every 1,000 square feet, while banks must provide four spots for the same area. The requirements for apartments depend on the number of bedrooms — each two-bedroom unit requires 1.66 parking spaces, for instance — while single-family homes must provide two parking spaces.
The parking requirements are far higher for restaurants, which must provide eight to 10 spaces per 1,000 square feet, depending on whether they are classified as “small restaurants,” “neighborhood restaurants” or “restaurants.”