After eliminating parking minimum requirements in downtown Traverse City decades ago and the same for residential properties in 2020, city planning commissioners are exploring whether to also eliminate them for commercial properties – leaving it up to developers to decide how much parking to offer instead of mandating spaces.

Cities across the country are increasingly getting rid of parking minimums – requirements for new developments to offer a certain number of parking spaces. The American Planning Association says eliminating minimums can “help boost small businesses, promote housing development, and put people over parking.” Even the National Parking Association – the leading trade association for parking – supports reducing or eliminating parking minimums, favoring instead letting developers determine how many spaces they need based on demand. Traverse City could be the next city to eliminate parking minimums as officials explore doing away with them for commercial properties – the last zoning area for which they’re still intact.

Traverse City hasn’t had parking requirements downtown since the late 1970s, City Planning Director Shawn Winter said at a May 21 planning commission meeting. In 2020, city commissioners voted to also eliminate minimums for residential properties, which were previously required to have at least one parking space per dwelling unit. Commissioners agreed with arguments that mandating parking increases development costs – a hindrance to building more badly needed housing – and takes up land for asphalt instead of bigger residential buildings. Former City Planning Director Russ Soyring said at the time that developers would still likely build parking – many tenants will want it, he noted – but that they could scale it appropriately with minimums eliminated, especially in walkable/bikable areas with public transportation.

City planning commissioners last week gave staff the green light to begin pulling together data for a discussion and possible vote on reducing or eliminating parking minimums for commercial properties. Several planning commissioners were under the impression those minimums had already been eliminated. The planning commission – which had different members at the time – did discuss eliminating or reducing commercial minimums in 2020 along with residential. However, those changes were never enacted (the city did make changes to enact parking maximums for some areas). Soyring had pointed to large, mostly empty parking lots that dot corridors like Eighth Street (pictured) and said it was clear the city’s zoning code “either requires too many parking spaces, or developers are building too many parking spaces.”

With the pandemic significantly changing the demand for office/commercial space, a potential future of autonomous cars, and a push to promote environmental health by reducing impervious surfaces and stormwater runoff (plus heat islands created by sprawling parking lots), many communities are rethinking their approach to parking lots. Winter also noted that parking lots don’t “generate tax revenue,” and that increasing density has been found to be one of the top ways cities can reduce their carbon emissions. Some recent developments – like Loco Boys on West Front Street, just outside of downtown’s boundaries – have chafed under the city’s parking requirements, Winter said, eventually having to reduce their seating because they couldn’t provide the high number of parking spaces required by city zoning rules.

Planning Commissioner Brian McGillivary said restaurants or retail stores not having enough parking spaces would likely be the biggest driver of complaints from a policy change. Not enough on-site parking can sometimes lead to spillover parking in neighborhoods, he said, which also drives complaints. For that reason, he suggested that reducing – not eliminating – parking minimums in some zones could be a solution. Soyring also previously suggested that as an option. The city’s ordinance, for example, requires a minimum of one parking space for every 350 square feet of gross floor area for offices, retail shops, and financial institutions, but that figure could be increased to 500 square feet to reduce the number of required parking spaces, Soyring said. The city could also reduce parking in specific geographic areas based on need and demand, Soyring previously suggested.

While eliminating or reducing minimums could give developers more flexibility, several planning commissioners emphasized that parking isn’t going away. City Commissioner Mitch Treadwell, who also sits on the planning commission, pointed out that other entities besides the City of Traverse City can have their own parking requirements. The Traverse City Housing Commission is working on a senior housing project on Eighth Street near the Civic Center for which the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) has parking requirements attached to its funding, he said. And market demand will still mean offering parking spaces in most areas – just perhaps not as many as before.

“Just because we don’t require parking, or we change our parking requirements, doesn’t mean that buildings will get built without parking,” Treadwell said. Winter agreed, adding the city has already seen that play out in the residential sector. “Even without residential minimum parking requirements, people still provide parking,” he said. “But they provide parking that they know they need, rather than an arbitrary number.”