Parking minimums are zoning rules that require a new building to provide at least a set number of off-street parking spaces, usually stated as a ratio per housing unit or per 1,000 square feet of floor area.
They are also called minimum parking requirements, off-street parking requirements or, by reform advocates, parking mandates. The opposite rule is a parking maximum, which caps how much parking a project may build.
Why they matter
- Every required stall is built whether or not anyone needs it, so the rule sets a floor under construction cost. Structured stalls typically cost tens of thousands of dollars each, and underground stalls cost the most.
- On small urban lots, the parking requirement often decides the building more than height or density limits do: ramps, aisles and excavation consume the site.
- Minimums are usually set from suburban demand data, so they can overstate how many cars residents near transit actually own.
Reform
- California’s AB 2097 (2022) bars cities from imposing or enforcing parking minimums on most projects within a half mile of a major transit stop.
- Removing a minimum does not ban parking. Developers can still build what the market supports, and the question becomes what to build instead.
The Parkonomics view
A minimum answers a question in advance, for every site at once: how much parking should this building have? Take the rule away and the question goes to the people paying for the stalls. Removing a minimum does not ban parking; it makes parking a decision.
Try it: Count the conflict points on your block, a Parkonomics calculator that shows what each driveway adds and what shared access removes.
Related terms: Required parking spaces, Parking Ratios, AB 2097, Unbundled Parking, Shared Parking., Parking Maximums, Parking Cash-Out, Stroad, Form-Based Code
Further reading: The Zoning Arrives Before the Train, Santa Monica’s Height Fight Is a Parking Fight