(The Center Square) – Washington state needs to build more than one million housing units over the next two decades, but one proposal intends to clear the way by repealing the state’s minimum parking requirements.
Spokane eliminated its parking requirements last year to encourage the development of empty lots around town. The Legislature wants to follow suit with Senate Bill 5184, but only for cities with more than 20,000 people, extending to roughly 60% of Washingtonians.
The proposal aims to bolster the state’s housing supply by lowering the amount of mandated parking developers must provide. Sen. Jessica Bateman, D-Olympia, said 58% of renters have one or no car, but building a home with less than one space is illegal in most cities.
“The way that we regulate parking in the [U.S.] is getting in the way of our ability to create the things that we also need,” Bateman said. “We know that there are some places where it makes sense to have a lot of parking, and then there are other times when it’s not necessary.”
If approved, SB 5184 would prohibit cities from requiring more than 0.5 parking spaces per unit.
She argued that the current regulation requires developers and tenants to pay for parking they may not need. Bateman added that one in four homeowners also have one or no car, but over 90% of cities require two or more off-street parking spots before developers can build a home.
“Parking requirements needlessly drive up the cost of development,” according to the bill, “discourage walking and multimodal transit usage, and encourage excessive reliance of automobiles with attendant impacts on human health and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Bateman’s proposal would also apply to commercial spaces. She said the current law requires typical retail stores to provide more parking than the actual building. If approved, SB 5184 would stop cities from mandating more than one space per 1,000 square feet of commercial space.
The bill also prohibits minimum requirements for “existing buildings undergoing a change of use, including vacant buildings; residences under 1,200 square feet; commercial spaces under 5,000 square feet; affordable housing; senior housing; housing for people with disabilities; facilities that serve alcohol, child care facilities, [and] commercial spaces in mixed-use projects.”
However, the bill would not apply to parking spaces required by the Americans with Disabilities Act or areas within a mile radius of airports with at least 9 million annual passengers boarded. It also wouldn’t cap the parking developers can provide, meaning they get to decide.
Republican attempts to limit the bill to cities with at least 225,000 people failed. Only Seattle and Spokane would surpass that threshold, but Tacoma is only a few thousand away. The Senate passed SB 5184 with bipartisan support in a 40-8 vote.
“You’ll see on our side, there will be a mix because we have different cities,” Sen. Keith Goehner, R-Dryden, said of his dissenting peers, “but I believe this is a good step forward.”