Reform Parking Requirements

HB 1400 will help address New Hampshire’s housing deficit by removing barriers to development.

Parking mandates limit the rights of property owners to determine how best to use their land, often resulting in more expensive development costs at a time when stimulating the housing market is critical to ensuring everyone can afford a home. Reforming parking mandates means a property owner can assess their need for parking, and determine how many spots should be built, where they should go, and what (if anything) should be charged for using that space—without interference from government.

  • Excessive parking mandates often compete with housing for the same plot of land, limiting the potential for additional homes.

  • Many municipalities impose specific parking requirements for each unit in a new development. Each of these parking spots incurs costs ranging from $17,000 to $35,000, depending on the structural complexity, occupying space equivalent to a studio apartment.

  • Parking dramatically increases the cost to a tenant to rent an apartment - regardless of whether they own a car or not. Parking can add up to 17% to the rent every month. 

  • Requiring the construction of parking spaces hinders builders and property owners from making informed decisions about property development, and limits residents' ability to shape their own lifestyles.

  • The costs and spatial constraints imposed by parking mandates can render housing developments financially infeasible. Allowing developers and residents to decide whether to include parking based on local circumstances is a more effective approach, ultimately leading to increased housing availability.

What we know about parking requirements:

Case Study: Buffalo, NY

In 2017, Buffalo, NY became the first major American city to end parking mandates citywide. In its first two years, the results were:

  • Aggregate parking spaces among single-use projects still exceeded the earlier minimum requirements, as many projects still provided far more parking than required.

  • 47% of major developments included fewer parking spaces than previously permissible, suggesting earlier minimum parking requirements were excessive for the needs of some projects.

  • Mixed-use developments introduced 53% fewer parking spaces than would have been required by earlier minimum requirements as developers readily took advantage of the newfound possibility to include less off-street parking.

  • Newly legal projects created 2x as many homes & business spaces as developments that met the old parking requirements.

Frequently Asked Questions

WILL THIS MEAN THERE WON’T BE ENOUGH PARKING?

No. Removing parking mandates doesn’t stop developers from creating parking. If, for instance, the City of Manchester eliminates parking mandates, property owners will have the flexibility to decide the appropriate amount of parking to incorporate into each specific project.

WILL THIS BILL INCREASE THE COST OF RESIDENTIAL PARKING?

Currently, when a multifamily apartment building has parking, the cost of rent typically includes parking expenses. However, with the removal of parking mandates, builders can more accurately determine the necessary parking, leading to a separation of parking costs from rent.

This means that current renters may be paying for one or two parking spaces regardless of whether they need them as a part of, and the average cost amounts to 17% of the rent! 

Going forward, this change may mean that there is a separate parking cost, which means as a renter, you’ll be able to better assess how much parking costs, whether you could reserve a spot elsewhere for less money, and what the total cost of car ownership is. 

WHY DOES THIS MATTER? WE NEED MORE HOMES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, HOW DOES PARKING PLAY A ROLE?

Parking mandates play an important role in how many homes get developed in several ways:

  • Oftentimes, a city sets a high parking minimum either per apartment or per bedroom. Parking is incredibly expensive - anywhere from $17,000 - $35,000 per spot, depending on the structure of the lot. This means that for a building to get built, the developer must charge higher prices in order to cover the cost of the parking that is required by the City.

  • Parking mandates are a minimum amount of parking that must be built, and each parking space takes up a lot of space. The amount of space required for 1.5 parking spaces, plus entry/exit is about 488 square feet. If the average two bedroom is about 900 square feet, that’s two parking spots. By appropriately building parking to meet the need, instead of an arbitrary measure set by the city, builders can build more apartments per building, providing more homes for people and often bringing down the cost per home.

  • Lastly, parking mandates may mean that some very nice, available lots are simply infeasible to build housing on because there isn’t enough room to build the number of spots required by the city.