Making the case for statewide elimination of parking mandates.

If Minnesota becomes the first state to end parking minimums, it'll be thanks in large part to Chris Meyer.

Since he read the High Cost of Free Parking over a decade ago, Chris Meyer has been on a mission to liberate new homes and businesses from costly parking mandates - rules that dictate every building have a pre-determined minimum number of parking stalls.

From writing about parking minimums in his college newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, to handing out copies of Shoup's book to Minneapolis City Council members, Chris has been sowing the seeds of reform wherever he is. "I've never met anyone that is as excited about parking than Chris Meyer," US Representative Ilhan Omar said at the bill's press conference, recounting the years she worked at city hall leading up to Minneapolis's 2015 transit-related parking reform. Meyer went on to serve on the Minneapolis Planning Commission, which added the City of Lakes to the list of cities who fully repealed parking minimums in 2021.

Now, as legislative assistant to state Senator Omar Fateh, he is behind an ambitious new bill in Minnesota that would prohibit parking mandates across the state: All cities, all uses. Sightline called him up to learn more.

Catie Gould: How did the People over Parking Act originate?

Chris Meyer: I suggested it to my boss [Senator Fateh]. He was persuaded it was a good idea, because he cares a lot about housing affordability and climate action. This was a good way to take on both of those issues.

You took a pretty bold stance. No minimums at all, no exceptions. What is your thinking around the politics of that versus incremental reform - like no minimums for certain uses or around transit? Those approaches seem more common.

A more modest version would probably have an easier time passing but - first, the reception has been pretty good! The Star Tribune, the big paper here, their editorial board wrote an opinion piece in support of the bill. And a GOP legislator just came out in support. Opposition has been more muted than anticipated. But even if it hadn't been, I felt like it was important to make the case for the full-fledged elimination of parking minimums, across the board.

I know a lot of other places started with removing them around transit stations. That's how Minneapolis did it as well in 2015. But I feel the case against parking minimums is just as strong regardless of whether it's a small-town, suburb, or a big city, and regardless of how car dependent the place might be. I'm from a small town of 6,000 people. We have a nice downtown main street. It would be illegal to build as it is under parking minimums. There would be too much parking required between buildings for it to be a nice, walkable, main street. In small towns it makes sense to get rid of these. It makes sense to get rid of them everywhere.

Parking minimums are only ever bad or pointless. If you set requirements low enough that they would be building it anyway, it's a pointless requirement. If you set it above what they would be building otherwise, then you're forcing unnecessary parking to be built. So regardless of the situation, we felt that it was important to communicate that these parking minimums are bad policy everywhere.

Has statewide parking reform ever been attempted in Minnesota before?

Not to my knowledge. If it has, no one knows about it because it seems like everyone is being introduced to the idea for the first time.

Will this bill have an impact on people's everyday lives?

It'll be a gradual one. Minneapolis, St. Paul, and now Duluth also eliminated parking minimums as well. As we did that there wasn't any dramatic change overnight. But gradually it did reduce housing costs pretty substantially. There was national coverage of how Minneapolis was keeping inflation low because rents were staying low. That was largely because of reforms like this, that allowed more housing to be built.

Why does the state n...