Dallas Proposal to End to Minimum Parking Requirements Draws Opposition at Tuesday Meeting

Experts, residents, and city staff agreed Tuesday there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to the Dallas parking situation, and it could take many years to get it right. 

But they’re willing to try.

The Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee reopened the matter Tuesday after shelving it for years due to changes in leadership, officials said Tuesday. District 1 Councilman Chad West and others filed a five-signature memo earlier this month asking for further study. 

Some Council Members Hope Reducing Parking Standards Will Make it Easier to Build in Dallas

ZOAC, a subcommittee of the City Plan Commission, heard from Senior Planner Michael Wade on Tuesday, along with several interested residents, most of whom asked for a reduction in requirements.

Eliminating parking requirements won’t eliminate parking, officials reiterated. It just gives developers the option of how much they want to put in for new construction.

“This is something we’re doing for our children and our grandchildren,” Wade said. “It’s really just wedging open the faucet a little bit and starting drop by drop of change. This will give us time to adjust if and when we individually, per household, per neighborhood, see fit.”

A tentative timeline outlines plans for ZOAC to submit a recommendation to the City Plan Commission in mid-October, followed by a recommendation by the CPC in the fall. The City Council could vote on the matter late this year or in early 2024. 

The City’s Planning and Urban Design Department already is working on revisions to the development code that would eliminate minimum parking requirements for new development, creating an easier process for developers and fostering a more walkable environment. However, a concern exists that if new development doesn’t have enough parking spaces, vehicles will spill over into neighborhoods.

Transportation And Land Use

When developers realize that they don’t have space, time, or resources to work out the impacts of parking minimums on their projects, the city ends up with homes that aren’t built and businesses that aren’t open, Wade told ZOAC members.

Land uses require a parking space based on a ratio of square footage or a similar measurement, depending on the type of development. Dallas code has included parking requirements since 1947. 

“It’s very important that we keep top of mind that transportation and land use … interact with each other,” Wade said. “Our modes of transportation impact how we build our city and how we build our land. When we’re thinking about parking, driving, and building, we need to remember that parking is not only a byproduct of transportation and how we build our city, it also produces more driving and more vehicle miles driven. It produces a certain landform.” 

Transit-oriented development is on the rise, offering a mix of land uses. Dallas Area Rapid Transit looks at the city’s density when determining where to allocate money and resources, Wade explained. 

“TOD is not just glass towers and a park with a rail sliding by and everyone carrying lattes as they walk happily to work,” Wade said. “TOD also looks like Live Oak and Skillman — duplexes, triplexes, townhomes next to neighborhood commercial. Tyler and 12th off Jefferson has four bus routes. That’s, in my opinion, much more connected than one light rail sliding through your neighborhood.” 

Neighbors And Experts Weigh in on Parking Reform 

The goal of amending the code is to accommodate growth in a way that allows those who can get off the road to use alternative transportation options and create a safer, easier driving experience for motorists who have to use vehicles, Wade said. 

“We’re not trying to be New York City,” he said. “We’re better than New York City.” 

But there is the matter of spillover parking and its impact on neighborhoods.

Far North Dallas resident Cookie Peadon cited the challenges of trying to transport multiple large items from one place to another in a city that isn’t parking-friendly. 

“I am concerned that if we try to paint a stroke that is one-size-fits-all, even with the density you have in downtown Dallas, it’s going to cause problems,” she said. “One size does not fit all. I would urge that, as you look at the different things you’re looking at right now … you could have a store where it’s physically impossible for someone to carry that load back on mass transit.”

Barrett Urban Development founder and CEO Nathaniel Barrett told CandysDirt.com after the ZOAC meeting that the City of Dallas’ current parking code is the “epitome of a one-size-fits-all approach.”

“No matter where you are in the city, you have to follow this set of parking requirements,” he said. “If anything, removing those is a return to not one-size-fits-all. It lets every property owner decide how much parking they’re going to provide, which is a lot more freedom for everybody and a lot cheaper for the city and property owners. But we still have to address the problem of spillover.” 

Barrett urged ZOAC to support dropping parking requirements throughout the city and focus on the curb management policy, which covers city right-of-way. 

“The curb management policy is the right tool to regulate the problem of spillover parking,” he said. “This is the first time the city has put together a comprehensive approach to the curb, a historically underutilized but valuable part of city assets. In my view, that will address 80 percent of the parking problems. Curb management is the answer to spillover.”

Architect Laurel Stone, a consultant to multifamily developers, spoke in support of reducing parking requirements. 

“I think the developers are always going to provide parking that is demanded by the market,” Stone said. “I also think consideration needs to be given to existing [planned developments]. Over 1,000 PDs exist in this city. Many of them were created to address parking reductions, as the PD was the main tool for doing that.”

Barrett told CandysDirt.com he’s hopeful the transportation department will deliver a “bang-up” presentation next week, showing how the curb management policy would deal with spillover parking. 

“In my perfect world … We would eliminate off-street parking requirements citywide and pair it up with a thorough implementation of the curb management policy, with an immediate follow-up or concurrent effort to have parking benefit districts put in place,” he said. 

In a parking benefit district, revenue from meters goes to neighborhood associations and has to be used for public improvement projects.

“There’s one in Houston that has generated $350,000 for the neighborhood over the last 10 years,” Barrett said. “It turns parking meters from a nuisance into an asset. Now it’s an investment. Everybody’s interested in the meters being successful. People who arrive are paying customers, contributing to making the city more beautiful.” 

ZOAC member Amanda Popken said she hopes to take advantage of an urgent funding opportunity in next year’s city budget and the 2024 bond program “to make a critical dent in how this parking scenario can play out for our city over the next 10 years, the next 15 years, and the next generation.”