Statement: Open Plans Applauds City’s Historic, Legacy-Making Move to Fully Lift Parking Mandates

Today the Department of City Planning and the Office of the Mayor announced that their City of Yes Zoning of Housing Opportunity text amendment will include full citywide elimination of New York City's parking mandates. 

Statement from Sara Lind, co-Executive Director at Open Plans:

"This is what meeting the moment looks like. Ending mandatory parking mandates works for the entire city by knocking out an obsolete, antiquated barrier to housing affordability, home ownership, efficient mass transit, and economic development. It is nothing short of a historic step and we applaud DCP and Mayor Adams for their unflinching action to address our housing, climate, and livability crises. For decades, New York City has legally required a practice that hampers affordable housing, makes neighborhoods less vibrant, pollutes our air, and clogs our streets with noisy, dangerous cars. The administration gets that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to amend that by changing our obsolete, regressive zoning code. The boldest, simplest solution — lifting parking mandates, citywide — is also the one that will best set New York City up for success.

"The key here is “options” — lifting parking mandates will restore the option to build less parking when it's not needed or wanted. And in turn, will encourage vital new options to walk, bike, or take mass transit on streets not clogged with cars. By lifting parking mandates citywide, we give every neighborhood the opportunity to build what’s needed, wanted, and good for the whole community.

"Cars don’t make New York great, New Yorkers do. And everyday New Yorkers are hurt by the City’s prioritization of driving above all else. We can’t have the environment, the housing, or the economic growth we need to thrive as long as outdated parking mandates stay in place. With this leadership from DCP and Mayor Adams, New York City can finally begin to rectify the harms done by a zoning code that encourages driving but makes it more difficult to actually get where we’re going. Lifting parking mandates citywide is the bold, straightforward, and visionary action New Yorkers need."