Architect Tipton Housewright Says Too Much Parking is ‘Bad Urban Design’

A Dallas code amendment slated to go before the City Plan Commission this summer would eliminate minimum parking requirements for new development and improve walkability and bicycle safety, city planners said Tuesday. 

The code change also establishes a Transportation Demand Management Plan for qualifying project developers to “think comprehensively about their impact on transportation systems.” 

Architects Ryan Behring and Tipton Housewright, who serve on the Dallas Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee, took questions with planners Michael Wade and Sarah May at the American Institute of Architects panel discussion Tuesday. 

“Too much parking is just bad urban design,” Housewright said. “It’s bad land use. It affects our tax base. It affects the quality of our environment.” 

The matter has been discussed by Dallas policymakers since 2019, and the fundamentals of the current code have been in place since the 1960s. The current one-size-fits-all approach requires developers with “a lot of capital” to assemble several acres, which is particularly challenging for infill development, Housewright said. 

“You get this sort of monoculture of development of these large, chunky projects around the city and you don’t get the interesting scale of the smaller projects because you can’t solve the parking,” he said.

ZOAC voted in January to recommend eliminating parking requirements for new development. After the City Plan Commission takes up the matter in June, it will go before the Dallas City Council. 

Changes to The Dallas Development Code 

Behring pointed out that the North Texas region is booming in population growth but Dallas isn’t. 

“Good urban places are flexible and adaptable,” he said. “When you have one rule that applies the same to our vastly varying neighborhoods … it doesn’t allow those places to adapt and change as Dallas has already. I think we’re trying to meet Dallas where it’s at.” 

Eliminating parking minimums does not mean existing parking spaces will be wiped out; it just gives developers the option of determining how many spaces they need for new projects instead of adhering to an antiquated code that designates a certain number of spaces per square foot or bedroom anywhere in the city. 

“There are no maximums in this ordinance,” Housewright said. “Lenders are going to require parking from a commercial developer. If someone is building space and they’re going to lease it to a tenant, the tenant is going to ask about parking. There’s all sorts of self-interest here and self-policing.” 

The chief concern of those who oppose a code change is spillover parking into neighborhoods. Planned developments such as PD 193 in Oak Lawn that have specified their own parking requirements would not be affected by the code change. 

How Parking Reform Ties to ForwardDallas

Can we talk about anything these days without the conversation turning to ForwardDallas? Doesn’t look like it.

Public affairs consultant Katie O’Brien, who moderated Tuesday’s AIA panel discussion, asked if parking requirements have any connection to the city’s ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan. 

The short answer, panelists said, is there is no connection.

Wade said the current parking requirements could inhibit what some city leaders hope to achieve through its land use plan: density, mixed-use, and more flexibility in development standards. 

May clarified that ForwardDallas isn’t a zoning document — something planners have repeatedly emphasized — and it doesn’t establish regulations. 

“The City is putting in the work, putting in the engagement, to engage communities that haven’t been engaged before, especially in our southern Dallas area … to establish what they want to see in their part of town,” May said. “This is an overall plan for the city so that when zoning changes come before CPC and council they can say, “Does it comply with the plan?’ It’s really just a plan to agree upon. This is the direction we want to take.”  

Parking is a regulatory implementation tool and is conceptually separate from the land use plan, May added. 

“It’s like comparing a budget with your water bill,” she said. “Hopefully your water bill fits in your budget, but they’re very separate documents, both very important things that we have to consider.”