On Wednesday, the Washington State Senate Housing Committee voted to advance sweeping reforms of the state’s laws lessening parking mandates in new and existing development. It’s the first time that a major parking reform bill has advanced out of committee in the Senate, and the vote followed public hearings where testimony was overwhelmingly in favor of reducing or eliminating onerous parking mandates that add housing costs and often prevent projects from moving forward at all.
The final vote was 6-1, with Sen. Keith Goehner (R-12th, Leavenworth) joining every Democrat on the committee in a voting to approve the bill.
Sponsored by Senator Jessica Bateman (D-22nd, Olympia), Senate Bill 5184 would prevent cities and counties from requiring more than one stall for every two units of housing and more than one stall for every 1,000 square feet of commercial space. SB 5184 would bar local governments from requiring any off-street parking in a variety of instances where parking stands in the way of community needs, including child care and senior living facilities, commercial spaces in mixed-use buildings, small apartment units, and all areas within a close walk to frequent transit.
As it stands, many jurisdictions require significantly more parking than allowed under the bill, often basing mandates on arbitrary manuals rather than rigorous analysis of local conditions.
“Our minimum parking requirements are outdated and archaic, and they’re getting in the way of building the housing that our communities desperately need,” Bateman said at the bill’s first hearing on January 24.
While far from the only housing policy under consideration by the state legislature this session, curtailing parking mandates is likely one of the biggest ways that Washington can make housing more affordable, while at the same time encouraging transit use and smarter use of land. Recent research conducted by the Colorado Energy Office found that right-sizing parking minimums had the potential to increase the number of new homes by anywhere from 40% to 70%.
Adding parking in a surface lot can cost builders $20,000 per stall (plus the opportunity cost of not adding more housing instead), and can run $60,000 or more per stall in an underground garage, according to the Sightline Institute, a local think tank focused on environmental sustainability that is backing the bill. These added costs get passed on to renters or future homeowners.
Nothing in the bill prevents a developer from providing parking above-and-beyond the proposed regulatory cap, but it does provide builders more options, making it popular with housing reformers. Parking reform was prominently featured as a recommendation in the housing action plan created by Ferguson’s transition team over this winter, alongside other reforms like transit-oriented development.
“The bill offers a flexibility: fit parking need to market need, recognizing that many households and businesses don’t require a lot of parking, especially in the high transit capacity areas we’re looking to support,” Nicolas Carr, who is a policy advisor to Governor Bob Ferguson, told the committee last month. “It also significantly reduces the amount of land required for parking. Developers don’t stop building parking when mandates are lowered or removed, they just have more freedom to right size the parking needs for the project that they’re working on.”
While a parking reform bill advanced out of the House’s Housing Committee two years ago, the conversation around the detrimental impact of parking mandates has advanced significantly since that time. One of the biggest changes has been the number of representatives of local governments now pushing for this policy change. Just since SB 5184 was introduced, elected officials or planning staff in cities ranging from Bothell to Bellingham and Spokane to Vancouver have all testified in favor.
Spokane, Bellingham, and soon Shoreline, have gone even further and completely repealed any minimum parking requirements that exist in their land use codes, allowing builders to match parking with market demand. Other cities are asking the state to step in and create a more reasonable framework around parking.
“Vancouver has both a traditional urban core as well as suburban development, and we, as a city, believe this bill works for all areas of our city,” Vancouver Councilmember Ty Stober said last month. “This bill continues the process of addressing the housing accessibility crisis in my community in the state, and helps maximize the number of units being built.”
On the other hand, opposition from cities reluctant to give up their ability to mandate parking has not lessened, and the Association of Washington Cities — an powerful lobbying group that has blocked similar legislation in the past — included SB 5184 on its list of “do not advance” legislation.
“You could recognize that parking requirements are best tailored by local governments that understand their communities unique needs, rather than dictating a one-size-fits-all state mandate,” Mercer Island Mayor Salim Nice said. “I urge the committee to reconsider this bill and prioritize approaches that balance housing affordability with the practical needs of workers and residents.”
Nice was one of the biggest opponents of Bateman’s 2023 middle housing bill, HB 1110, and is also opposing other housing reforms this session including administrative approval of lot splitting and the Housing Accountability Act.
Mercer Island does have a one-size-fits-all mandate for parking, including a blanket requirement for one stall for every 300 square feet of office use and two stalls for every one unit in an apartment building. But the city also holds the ability to grant variances from those mandates, a process that requires developers to negotiate with city staff in a way that adds expense and uncertainty to projects. The coming 146-unit Xing Hua building in Mercer Island’s town center, an eight-minute walk to the city’s soon-to-open light rail station, is set to include 192 parking stalls.
But as Washington’s housing crisis continues to mount, the concerns about retaining local control over something so impactful as mandated parking seem to be given less and less weight in Olympia.
“We have before us many bills this year that are aimed at taking a holistic approach to addressing our housing crisis, including increasing supply, increasing stability and support,” Bateman said ahead of the committee vote Wednesday. “This is a bill that will touch on the supply element of that equation, and I think it’s been referred to as one of the bills that might have the biggest impact on supply in Washington State.”
While SB 5184 still has quite a ways to go before making it to the governor’s desk, parking reform undoubtedly has more momentum behind it than it’s ever had before.
Ryan Packer has been writing for The Urbanist since 2015, and currently reports full-time as Contributing Editor. Their beats are transportation, land use, public space, traffic safety, and obscure community meetings. Packer has also reported for other regional outlets including Capitol Hill Seattle, BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
