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Parking Lots Do Nothing for Our City

Why parking minimums should be eliminated citywide.

Tim Meyer

Parking minimums are requirements for new developments that say a certain number of parking spaces must be built along with the development. Unfortunately, this comes at a significant price for all residents of a given locality. In a 2010 article, Tyler Cowen goes into depth about the costs of “free parking,” but the gist is that we, as taxpayers, cover a significant amount of the legitimate, market-based costs of parking when the city subsidizes parking spots, making them “free.” Parking minimums also cost a lot for property owners and renters, and they raise the cost of building a lot. Houston is not anywhere near the worst offender in the United States when it comes to parking requirements and subsidies, but it sure isn’t perfect. It's important to know what the costs of Houston's parking rules are so that we can fight for a better city. One issue that we, as Houston urbanists must address is how to persuade our decision-makers to abolish parking minimums citywide.

In the past few years, Houston has made a lot of progress, with urbanism becoming more and more popular there. Essentially, the “Central Business District," or Downtown, East Downtown (EaDo), and Midtown, do not have any parking requirements. In 2019, when the dotted extension of the parking exemption zone grew, Councilmember Cisneros talked about the benefits of the plan, saying that it "will lead to better streetscapes in this transition period as Houston becomes more urban, which will help us be greener, healthier, and more walkable."

City of Houston

It turns out that Cisneros couldn’t have been more right! Following the elimination of parking minimums in EaDo investment has skyrocketed. Places such as the old Houston Post building at 2410 Polk St., now called the Printhouse, were left vacant for years, and it’s now home to a CVS and multiple office spaces.

In fact, there have been tons of trendy developments in these areas of the city, as it has become a lot more affordable to develop a plot, considering you do not have to build a huge slab of concrete to park a few cars next to it.

Minimum parking requirements act like a fertility drug for cars.

Donald Shoup, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA

Many parking spaces in the city also do not pay their fair share of property tax because our property tax system is based on both land value and improvements to the plot. Essentially, what our tax code does is favor parking space developments over other types of development because the value of the “improvement” is much less compared to, say, a plot with a large office building like a skyscraper. This creates a perverse incentive where someone who simply covers a plot in asphalt and calls it a day is paying much lower property taxes than someone who is creating office spaces for thousands of jobs. This has led many people to consider a single tax on a plot of land instead of the fragmented system we currently use.

The perverse incentives created by raising taxes on those who improve their land with active uses like offices, stores and homes, led Henry George in the 19th Century to propose a “single” tax on land, what is now generally called the “land value tax” (LVT).

Even though Houston has made a lot of progress by exempting parts of downtown and some of the areas around it, there is still a lot of work to be done to encourage dense urban development, including the proper incentives. There is no good, market-based reason for the City of Houston to keep parking minimums in place, especially while we continue to reward those who do nothing to improve the plot of land they sit on. We must convince our fellow Houstonians and political leaders that the significant changes we’ve seen in places like EaDo are worth pursuing beyond the boundaries of Downtown.

P.S. If this left you wanting to learn more about parking minimums and possible solutions, I highly suggest this new Strong Towns YouTube video looking into the effects of Fayetteville eliminating its parking minimums.

No Bull is the only media outlet that aims for Houstonians in every part of town to live in cozy, secure, and charming communities. As such, No Bull is supported solely by readers like you and corporate sponsorships. If you would like to contribute to advocacy towards a stronger Houston, you can donate here. I’ll be back on Wednesday with more about our great city.

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