In 2019, developers built an affordable housing project in downtown Boulder that had more parking spots than homes.
The building, located at 1441 Pine Street, has 40 units of permanently affordable housing for formerly homeless young adults or people aging out of foster care. A local nonprofit, TGTHR, provides supportive services.
The site was required to have so much parking because it was built on a surface parking lot that served the entire street block. City regulations mandated the developers to provide parking for the whole block, including for the landowner, First United Methodist Church. This requirement came to more than 200 spots.
The developers requested a parking reduction, resulting in an underground lot with 68 spaces. Even still, today, most of those parking spaces sit empty most of the time. The underground parking cost an estimated $50,000 per space to build.
The project, while cited as a success story for affordable housing, also highlights the financial burden of the city’s parking requirements, particularly at a time when the city is seeking to drive down the cost of housing.
“Every time we have to build a parking spot, particularly a structured parking spot, it takes away from our ability to build housing,” Shannon Cox Baker, a consultant for the developer of the 1440 Pine Street project, told Boulder Reporting Lab. “We’re just dealing with limited resources.”
In the case of 1441 Pine Street, she said, it’s unlikely the developers could have built more homes even without the parking requirements, given the density restrictions in the city’s code. But the money that went to car storage could have gone to “nicer, more durable finishes” in the units, she said.
Given those tradeoffs, transportation and housing advocates are now requesting that the Boulder City Council repeal the city’s parking minimums for residential and commercial developments. Off-street parking minimums, which date back to the 1920s, are a common feature in city codes across the United States. Oftentimes, these limits were arbitrary.
“We are building too much parking,” Rebecca Davies, a member of the city’s Transportation Advisory Board, told Boulder Reporting Lab.
“It adds to the cost of constructing housing. It increases water runoff, and specifically polluted water runoff. It exacerbates the heat island effect. I could go on and on,” said Davies, who is the city ratings program director at the Boulder-based cycling advocacy group PeopleForBikes.
Davies has been gathering support for a request to councilmembers urging them to eliminate off-street parking minimums and pass a “transportation demand management” ordinance aimed at managing parking issues and supporting multimodal travel. The goal is to make the reforms part of the city council’s two-year priority list that will be determined in February.
Just about everywhere in the city, developers must provide at least one off-street parking spot for every housing unit, according to the city’s zoning laws. In commercial districts along 28th Street and 30th Street, for instance, developers must provide a parking spot for every 300 to 400 square feet of floor area, resulting in costly underground parking or sprawling surface lots.
The city’s Planning Board routinely approves requests from developers to reduce the number of parking spaces below the amount required in city code. But to get this approval, developers have to go through the site review process.
This process adds risk, time and costs to a project, according to Danica Powell, the founder of Trestle Strategy Group, a real estate consulting firm that is involved in residential and commercial projects across the city.
Powell generally supports removing the parking minimums. But she said some communities may need access to off-street parking. She cited the example of the Ponderosa Mobile Home Park, which is undergoing a redevelopment, where some homeowners have trucks for landscaping businesses. Similarly, a resident who lives in Gunbarrel away from bus lines and bike paths may also need off-street parking.
“We have to look at this through an equity lens,” Powell told Boulder Reporting Lab.
Cities across the country are eliminating off-street parking requirements. Gov. Jared Polis’ land-use bill would have prohibited the requirements in larger cities. The bill died on the last day of the 2023 legislative session, but similar legislation may reemerge this year.
“I want to at least reform those requirements, and potentially get rid of minimums entirely,” Mayor Aaron Brockett told Boulder Reporting Lab. “I think the time is right.”
If councilmembers repeal parking minimums, it may not be the last time they come up.
The issue of parking is often a proxy for deeper concerns about the impact of new developments on surrounding neighborhoods. Parking was one of the primary subjects raised during a public hearing over a proposal to build 45 300-square-foot “attainably priced” living units on Pearl Street near the city’s downtown. In response to a request for a parking reduction, one resident said “competition for parking will force the overflow into surrounding neighborhoods,” such as Whittier or Goss-Grove. The project is still in the site review phase.
Davies said this concern is one reason why councilmembers should also adopt a transportation demand management ordinance. She said such an ordinance could help encourage and accommodate modes of travel that do not involve driving a vehicle.
Such an ordinance could ensure that when developers build new housing, they also build sidewalks or multi-use paths or subsidize e-bikes, e-scooters, bus passes or car share programs. At the Millennium Hotel redevelopment, the developers are proposing to require tenants to pay a $75 monthly fee for a parking spot. Tenants who don’t seek a parking spot would receive a $150 per year stipend to pay for “alternative transportation.”
Residents may worry that a reduction in off-street parking in certain neighborhoods could result in more cars in their neighborhood. Davies said building more parking can encourage more driving, which worsens traffic congestion on residential streets.
“People are much more likely to drive when it’s really easy and free to park,” she said. “It is counterintuitive, but that’s what the research shows happens when we overbuild parking.”
How about they figure out and implement decent public transportation options before they do away with parking spaces. I’m relatively sure most everyone voting in favor of this has a vehicle at their disposal and aren’t penalized by having no place to park it or paying a huge monthly fee to park it. It takes nearly half an afternoon to go grocery shopping if you are not on a direct bus route to your store. And you will not be able to carry nearly as much walking the few blocks to your home from the bus stop so will have to do this more frequently than if you could use a vehicle. We can’t all afford, or have the type of apartment to accommodate, an ebike with all the necessary gear and accoutrements required to manage all the daily chores and tasks of daily living. I see very few folks on bikes in the winter for obvious reasons. People making these policies need to think more clearly about what is involved and how people will actually be affected. Don’t make people put up with things you would never be forced to do.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Ms Baker misrepresents the 1440 Pine Street parking issue. The out of state developer believed it could rent out those parking spots (since few of the residents were likely to have cars) and saw those spots as a revenue stream. That the property manager has been unable to find renters for those spots I’d chalk up to poor property management. The streets in that area are chock full of parked cars, including dozens of city workers who commute in and use city neighborhood parking permits that allow them to park in the Whittier parking zone. In terms of your larger story, 1440 Pine is a smoke and mirrors example. The target audience for that permanently affordable housing development is atypical of most developments in town, even most permanently affordable developments. In fact, for example, at the ponderosa manufactured home neighborhood, the decision was made – thanks to input from the residents- that as the homes were replaced with fixed foundation houses, each would have 2 parking spaces, because so many residents rely on their cars for work (as commuters but also work vehicles, such as trucks or vans). Look at Waterview (at 55th and Araphoe) to understand more accurately. That development is no where near anything…no grocery store, pharmacy, gym, school, office, barber, clothing store, etc. Residents will be driving EVERYWHERE. Get rid of parking minimums? Bad idea.
Idea for repurposing portions of underused surface lots, like the one pictured. Two words: Pickleball Courts.
The proposal and article would make it seem that there are only two options: the removal of parking spaces to facilitate more housing developments or allow them to stay. I would like to propose a third solution. Take all of the sprawling lots that are seemingly underused and convert them to parks and green space, maybe more community gardens. This idea that Boulder needs more development is absurd. We have been inundated with an overburdened infrastructure and the problem is only getting worse. City council should be a moratorium on all new delvelopments and work on revitalizing the empty retail spaces that already exist. Rebecca Davies comments on the environmental impacts of “too many parking lots” but fails to mention the severe environmental impact that new development causes, such as straining our water, sewer, and electrical, as well as taxing our first responder resources.
Even the Chamber is onboard with converting unused commercial office spaces, that will likely never be occupied near full capacity again, to affordable housing. New development may also be necessary to meet goals, but most “affordable” new development is decidedly lacking in design and utility. Those 300 square vote non-affordable apartments that are in site review now are one big bad example of what we don’t need.
Agree Sarah. Solution = balance and enforce jobs/housing, grossly out of balance for many decades. Don’t depend on property managers to do the right thing, as with Whittier. Make agreements with legally enforceable contingencies. John, pickle ball solution?, only if it’s central, otherwise more out-commuters increase congestion.
As to 2206 Pearl and the 45 micro-300 sf. efficiencies — offer no parking reductions. Occupants will just offset car ownership with Uber trips to transport their gear by out-commuting to storage facilities. Communal housing and internally and naturally managed car sharing like Marpa House is far superior to efficiencies or micro-efficiencies. They shouldn’t be allowed at all, and adequate storage should be required on all housing in town. The Planning Board was coerced into providing middle income without realizing the AMI requirement for these $1700 (80%AMI)-$2600 (120 $AMI)/mo. units was not permanently deed restricted and does not include the cost of parking. As soon as the first occupant leaves, the sky’s the limit and it’s market rate. 2206 was entertained in March ’23, so March ’23 prices apply. Short term thinking. Across the street at Whittier it’s 450 sf. for $1495/mo. including a parking space.
sorry, but if you think people are going to trade in the convenience of driving for e-bikes & buses, that is just magical thinking. sure, incentives to alt transportation may help some in terms of cars on the road–i ride my cruiser around town as much as possible, but not so much in winter & it’s not so great for big errands–but it’s not going to inspire people to get rid of their cars, which they’re going to have to park somewhere. it seems only reasonable for there to be at least one parking spot, on street or off, required for all dwellings.
I would recommenced that everyone in the comments check the work of Don Shoup, an UCLA economist who wrote “The High Cost of Free Parking”. We as a society have subsidized cars by requiring everywhere have off street parking and providing free on street parking in most of are public spaces and streets.
It need to be about not more or less parking, but the right amount of parking. Developers still have the incentive to build parking if they think it would boost the value of their development (which it very much likely would). Businesses will still want parking if they think that they need it for their customers. Other developers may need/ or want less parking if they say are close to Downtown, or CU, where many people do not have cars. A coffee shop on Pearl Street probably does not need very many off street parking spaces. It should be about making a market choice, not being required to do so.
To make sure that developers don’t just offload that parking on on to the street, Boulder neighborhoods with competitive parking should be part of the Neighborhood Parking Program (which he mentions in the book) and charge for parking in their neighborhood. Unlike what Boulder currently does, these off street spots should be set at a market price and the revenue be invested in that neighborhood directly.