A bill advancing in the Montana Legislature would place strict limits on how much parking the state’s cities can require as part of new residential developments, aiming to promote housing affordability.
Sponsored by Rep. Katie Zolnikov, R-Billings, House Bill 492 would limit city parking requirements to one space per dwelling unit in new construction. It would also ban parking requirements entirely for existing buildings undergoing renovations, licensed child care facilities and projects with housing units smaller than 1,200 square feet.
The measure passed the House on a 57-41 vote on March 3 and had its initial Senate-side hearing before the Senate Local Government Committee on Monday. There, Zolnikov argued that the measure would reduce construction costs and promote affordability by letting developers decide how much parking they need to include in their developments.
“A developer is going to know what works best for their development,” Zolnikov said. “Because ultimately you need people living there and paying rent there for your development to work out.”
Most Montana cities currently have some sort of parking minimums specified as part of their residential zoning codes, a requirement intended to keep vehicles from crowding shared on-street parking around new housing developments.
Bozeman’s development code, for example, generally requires two parking spaces for each new dwelling unit with two or more bedrooms — though the city does let developers count on-street parking bordering a project toward that quota. Missoula requires either one or two spaces per unit for most types of housing, as does Billings.
Those sorts of requirements have drawn criticism nationally from land use planners and housing affordability advocates who argue they unnecessarily drive up the cost of building housing. Limiting urban parking requirements was named last year as a possible housing affordability strategy by Gov. Greg Gianforte’s housing task force, which wrote at the time that surface parking stalls typically add $5,000 apiece to development costs. No one representing the Gianforte administration appeared in support of the bill Monday.
The legislation did draw support from groups including Shelter WF, the Frontier Institute, the Montana Building Industry Association, and the Montana Environmental Information Center.
“We have been overestimating how much parking we need for decades,” said Laura Collins with MEIC. “All that wasted space presents wasted value per acre.”
Opponents of the bill included the Montana League of Cities and Towns, the Montana Hospitality and Development Association, the City of Bozeman and disability rights advocates, who worried that eliminating parking minimums could result in developments that don’t include accessible parking spaces designated for people with disabilities.
Kelly Lynch, the executive director of the Montana League of Cities and Towns, said that parking reduction efforts in other parts of the country have generally focused on areas with well-developed public transit alternatives — something that’s a rarity in Montana cities.
“We love our cars,” Lynch said. “We expect available parking wherever we go.”
Emma Bode, a Bozeman city commissioner, also argued the bill would undermine an existing Bozeman program that relaxes the city parking requirements for developers who commit to offering below-market-rate rents.
“Relaxation of parking minimums is the strongest incentive in this ordinance,” Bode said. “Please don’t take this powerful tool away.”
Zolnikov told the committee that she was open to potentially amending her bill to address the concern over accessible parking spaces.
She also noted that she once lived in a downtown Billings apartment building that had no onsite parking.
“We just rented a space in a parking garage,” she said. “And we did have to walk about a block to get to our apartment — but it was fine.”
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
