Six months into the pioneering state policy, regulatory costs are falling and projects are springing to life.

In cities across Oregon, parking mandates are going out not with a bang, but a whimper.

“It’s sort of been a sleeper issue here”,

said Anne Catlin, the comprehensive planning manager for Albany, Oregon. When Albany repealed minimum parking requirements citywide earlier this June, not a single person from the public testified. Catlin didn’t recall the topic even making the newspaper.

Normally parking is one of the most contentious issues for local governments, making any relaxation of parking mandates – rules that prescribe a minimum number of parking spaces needed for any new home or business – a political hot potato. But new state parking rules have taken the status quo off the table, and turned what could be a big debate into a boring compliance exercise.

“There really isn't much to provide input on, we're just going to comply with the rules,”

said Sandy Belson from the city of Springfield.

By June 30th, affected jurisdictions could choose to either eliminate all parking mandates, or enact a host of more complicated regulations if they wish to retain minimums in some instances. The two other compliance paths include regulations ranging from pricing one in ten on-street parking spaces, to separating the cost of parking from rent to creating parking benefits districts. All of which would take additional staff time and oversight.

At least seven cities have voted to go the simpler route: Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Tigard, Bend, Albany, and Central Point. Now over a million people live in communities where parking is fully voluntary. More cities are poised to join them the next year, after using a deadline extension granted by the state.

Transit proximity already removed parking mandates from majority of lots

Removing all parking minimums wasn’t the dramatic leap it would have been a year ago. Last January, state rules lifted parking mandates for all properties within a half mile of frequent transit corridors, and within three-quarters mile of rail stations. City generated maps have revealed that those areas constitute the majority of lots in many cities. In Corvallis, those transit adjacent areas covered 65 percent of the city. For Gresham, 53 percent. In Tigard, 62 percent.

The slivers of city not included were likely to be low-density residential neighborhoods, industrial land, or open space.

“Most of our city falls within a half mile of our transportation corridor,”

Catlin said.

“It was an easy decision.”

In Corvallis, city planners recommended removing all minimums because bus service can change over time. If transit service were downgraded, building owners might suddenly find themselves needing to add more parking to stay legal. Service-dependent rules could also give residents who like parking mandates a reason to oppose transit upgrades, thereby deepening transportation inequities.

Transit service changes are already putting zoning maps in flux. A planned improvement to bus line 71 in Milwaukie this upcoming September would have increased the fraction of the city without minimum parking requirements from 78 percent to 95 percent. They plan to fully eliminate parking mandates later this year.

In addition to areas near transit, the state has also done away with parking mandates for long list of uses for equity reasons, including for affordable housing, small residences, and childcare facilities and more. Those rules will give more flexibility to housing projects like a senior care facility that had their expansion plans scuttled over two parking spaces last year.

State rules reduce barriers to new businesses

Local governments are often well aware of the specific sites, like oddly shaped lots or old buildings, where parking minimums pose barriers to redevelopment. But before Oregon’s state rules, they didn’t have a lot of options for reforming those counterproductive codes without an arduous political process.

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