The Next Stop on the Train to Parking Requirements Elimination

TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Open Plans
DATE: April 29, 2024

Today, the Adams administration took the next step toward making the “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” text amendment a reality, referring it to community boards and borough presidents for review before it heads to the City Planning Commission and then the City Council for a vote. 

We are glad to see that the proposed text amendment includes completely eliminating parking mandates citywide. But the job is not done. The path to enacting this policy is still long and full of potential roadblocks—from community boards, borough presidents and ultimately the City Council.  

Eliminating parking mandates is a popular, commonsense policy that will significantly improve affordability, sustainability, and livability and bring an end to the era of prioritizing cars over every other need or interest—all while still allowing flexibility to create parking where there is demand for it. As the approval process gets underway, it is imperative that local leaders and community board members support lifting parking mandates citywide as part of this critical zoning reform proposal.

Eliminating parking mandates is a no-brainer for people across the five boroughs. And it represents a straightforward opportunity for Mayor Adams to enact the kind of bold, legacy-making change he needs at this point in his mayoralty. 

How We Got Here

In September 2023, as part of a larger effort to improve New York City’s outdated zoning code, Mayor Adams unveiled the “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity'' text amendment. The final version of the text amendment, released earlier this month, includes a complete erasure of parking mandates from the city’s Zoning Code when it comes to residential developments throughout the entire city. Enacting this policy will allow New York City to break down a barrier—erected over 60 years ago—currently standing in the way of achieving housing affordability, safe streets, and climate justice. 

The text amendment must now be reviewed by the city’s 59 community boards and five borough presidents, pass the City Planning Commission, and be put to a vote by the City Council. With the review process now in motion, there are many chances along the way for the text amendment to be watered down. Borough presidents and City Council Members may succumb to pressure from obstructionist community boards intent on preserving car-centric policies. We are committed to educating community members on why these reforms will create lasting, positive change in their districts and ensuring local officials approve City of Yes despite vocal opposition from a small minority of New Yorkers. 

What Comes Next

While more than two-thirds of New Yorkers support doing away with parking mandates, the policy is opposed by a vocal minority who consistently prioritize their own narrow set of perceived interests over proposals that would help address the housing crisis, congestion, and other livability issues in New York City. When it comes to community boards, these voices tend to be the loudest in the room—giving them the ear of City Council members, who will vote on the text amendment this fall. 

With this in mind, Open Plans, in partnership with a coalition of housing and transit advocacy groups, is working to ensure that the majority view on parking mandate elimination (and other proposals in the text amendment) is reflected in the community board review process. These efforts include training existing community board members who support the policy on how to most effectively make the case for it, recruiting pro-transit, pro-housing New Yorkers to join their community boards and make their voices heard, and organizing community members to attend meetings and speak in favor of this important policy change. 

The Stakes 

No City Council member can credibly claim to be a champion of improving sustainability, housing affordability, and livability in New York City without supporting the end of parking mandates. 

Since 1961, New York City’s zoning code has required that a certain amount of parking be built to accompany every new residential development. At the time that law was created, elected officials thought that requiring off-street parking would limit congestion on the street. But in reality, it has incentivized car use and flooded streets with more traffic. 

Parking mandates are not some harmless relic of the past. This rule—with exceptions for certain neighborhoods in Manhattan and Long Island City—is very much in effect and dictates what can and can’t be built across the five boroughs. Specifically, parking mandates:  

• Exacerbate the housing affordability crisis by increasing the cost of construction, disincentivizing new housing production and in turn raising rents; they make some affordable housing impossible to build at all.

• Undermine use of and investment in public transit—encouraging car-centric infrastructure in a city where three-quarters of residents don’t use a car to commute, when we should be promoting the use and maintenance of the mass transit that most residents rely on to get around. 

• Impede efforts to address climate change and sustainability. By incentivizing the ownership and driving of cars, parking mandates lead to emissions that pollute our air and worsen the health of all New Yorkers, while the asphalt used to create parking spots puts the city at increased risk of flooding and the heat island effect. 

• Make NYC’s streets more dangerous by increasing street congestion, contributing to the city’s high rate of traffic deaths and injuries. 

By voting to get rid of parking mandates, City Council members have an opportunity to rectify the mistakes made by the policymakers of the past and make real progress on improving New York City’s present and future. As City Council members consider this policy, we must make sure that they focus on the broad, long-term benefits to the city and all New Yorkers—and tune out the vocal minority trying to convince them to do otherwise. 

Ending Parking Mandates Is Popular and Has a Successful Track Record in Other Cities 

Polling shows that the vast majority of New Yorkers want to do away with parking mandates for residential development. And the proposal put forth by Mayor Adams is not a radical, pie-in-the-sky one—nor is it without precedent or success elsewhere. Cities across the country have ended parking mandates and brought rents down without reducing parking in the neighborhoods that need it. 

In 2017, Buffalo—where the public transit system is far less robust than in the five boroughs and residents are more reliant on private vehicles—removed parking mandates. In the years that followed, 47% of large new buildings in Buffalo built less parking than had been required by the old mandates. But, crucially, the number of parking spaces did not drop to zero in such developments, showing that developers will still build parking to meet demand.

While some cities have enacted parking maximums, Mayor Adams’ proposal—like the change made in Buffalo—allows for more flexibility, so that parking can still be built where it is needed. Ending parking mandates is feasible, tested, and represents the appropriate path for New York City. 

Eliminating Parking Mandates Is a Rare Opportunity for the Adams Administration to Enact Bold, Legacy-Making Change at a Time When He Badly Needs of a Win  

By ending parking mandates citywide, Mayor Adams has a straightforward opportunity to enact the type of bold, legacy-making change he has promised—with no fiscal cost to the city. 

New York City’s policy-making process almost always involves trade-offs—and with the city facing budget cuts, that will likely be truer than ever this year. Mayor Adams is calling for all city agencies to reduce their budgets by 5%; however these reductions ultimately play out, he is certain to face heat for cuts to programs and initiatives that New Yorkers value. 

In this context, ending parking mandates is an easy win for Mayor Adams. Ending parking mandates is a policy change that does not need new funding to get implemented. In fact, eliminating parking minimums would save city resources because it would decrease the amount of city staff’s time and resources spent on real estate developers asking for waivers and reductions in parking required when they apply to construct new buildings. 

Open Plans’ Role 

While we are pleased to see citywide parking mandate elimination included in the text amendment, the proposal cannot succeed unless borough presidents and City Council members get it over the finish line. In the last few years, we’ve seen the Adams administration propose action on essential issues—from street safety to infrastructure—and then falter in the face of opposition from a small but vocal minority of New Yorkers opposed to progress. On parking mandates, we’re going to hold Mayor Adams’s and the City Council’s feet to the fire. 

In recent months, the coalition has held rallies to make it clear that there is significant, widespread grassroots support for the text amendment. We will be engaged in several more efforts and events to come as the approval process continues and won’t settle for anything less than total eradication of mandatory parking requirements.