Parking Mandates Are One Of The Greatest Threats to Historic Preservation
- Jonathan Berk
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
A version of this post originally appeared in the September 1 issue of Banker and Tradesman.
Across the country, historic buildings and historic neighborhoods are being lost, not only to fire, flood, or neglect, but to something far more banal: minimum parking requirements.
These invisible rules, buried deep in zoning codes, have quietly done more to erase our architectural heritage than the new development so often blamed. Cities have paved over courtyards, demolished corner stores and blocked the adaptive reuse of irreplaceable landmarks by forcing every project to carve out space for cars. This often leads to these landmarks falling into disrepair.
If we’re serious about balancing the preservation of our past, while creating sustainable, housing-abundant communities of the future, we need to recognize that one of the greatest threats to historic preservation efforts isn’t always a developer’s bulldozers – it’s often a line in our zoning code.
How Parking Minimums Harm Historic Preservation
Building and Lot Constraints
Numerous historic buildings are situated on small or irregular parcels that do not meet modern parking standards. Owners often encounter a challenging decision: either demolish the building, potentially violating historic preservation regulations, or extensively alter it to incorporate parking. If neither option is feasible, the building stays unoccupied and falls into disrepair, becoming an eyesore in the community and a detriment to the integrity of our historic neighborhoods.
Knitting together damage to the historic urban fabric
Throughout the past century, vast sections of historic neighborhoods in Massachusetts and across the nation have been torn down to make way for surface parking lots, disrupting walkable streets and erasing heritage. In many of our Gateway cities, from Fall River to Springfield and Haverhill, 25% to 40% of their buildable downtown land is occupied by surface parking. This creates gaps in the urban landscape and hinders efforts for economic revitalization. Repairing this damage, reconnecting these historic neighborhoods, and rebuilding a housing supply similar to nearby areas is almost impossible in most of these neighborhoods. Current parking requirements would consume excessive land in new developments or significantly reduce living space, rendering these new projects impractical.
"Frozen in Time" By New Regulations
Historic neighborhoods, like all communities, need to be able to adapt and change in response to evolving climate, economic, and population demands. The enforcement of preservation restrictions in these older areas, along with new dimensional and parking requirements that weren't present when these neighborhoods were initially developed, makes expansion or new housing nearly impossible or financially impractical. When changes happen, they frequently come at a significant cost to both the new development and the surrounding neighborhood.
211 Union Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts will be fully restored into a 35 unit apartment building above ground floor retail. However, local parking requirements would require the developer to include 119 parking spaces based on both residential and retail minimums, making any development here essentially impossible. Thankfully this project was granted flexibility from the burdensome parking requirements as it would have been both infeasible and incompatible with the neighborhood to force parking compliance on the redevelopment.
Also in New Bedford, a new mixed-use building at 278 Union Street is planned to replace a former single-floor RMV in the center of the Historic Downtown. To construct 52 units of housing and retail space, 130 parking spaces would have been required by the current zoning code. However, due to the limited footprint, an underground garage cannot provide sufficient space, and the small corner lot offers no room for surface parking. Without significant reduction from 130 to 19 parking spaces, this essential housing would not have been developed, leaving a gap in New Bedford's historic Downtown core and a blighted single story structure vacant, creating a drain on the City instead of a draw.
Preservation "Wins" That Come At Expense of Neighborhood
Transforming an old mansion in Salem, MA into an apartment building appeared to be a victory for historic preservation. However, satellite images reveal that to meet parking requirements, 3 potentially buildable parcels at the back were converted into surface parking for the primary structure, disrupting the historic neighborhood's fabric for the required parking. It was a win for historic preservation and housing, but it may have come at the cost of needed housing units and the "neighborhood's historic character."
Older towns and cities were built around walking, trolleys, and small carriage houses, not seas of asphalt. Parking mandates impose a suburban template onto places designed for people, not cars.
How Cities and States are Responding
Buffalo, New York was one of the first large cities in America to eliminate minimum parking requirements from it's residential zoning code, allowing infill development to tick up that was previously impossible with the archaic requirements in place. Numerous historic restoration projects across the City credit the 2017 "Green Code," a form based code that included elimination of parking minimums, with making their projects viable. With the old parking requirements, one local developer Bernice Radle told CNU; “we would have had to buy the vacant lot next door to install a parking lot. It would have doubled construction cost. Instead of $525 rent, we would have needed $800-900 month. That’s do or die for a small business.”
The Pierce-Arrow building in Buffalo was previously encumbered by both an industrial use designation and parking requirements that would be impossible to work into any redevelopment. Following the new code updates, this building was fully restored and turned into 105-apartments and a 100 seat restaurant.
In Montana, minimum parking requirements in cities statewide were eliminated by the legislature earlier this year, not only to make it easier to build housing in existing urban areas, but to make the adaptive reuse of historic downtown buildings possible in many Montana cities.
Eliminating parking minimums can be an effective approach to preserving many historic downtowns and neighborhoods, as it facilitates the reuse of old buildings and maintains the historic streetscape. Most historic downtowns were built before the implementation of modern zoning restrictions, and many existing zoning codes would prevent the majority of structures in historic neighborhoods from being constructed today.
Minimum parking requirements are likely among the most significant policy-created obstacles to both historic preservation and housing development. But if historic preservationists and housing advocates collaborate, they can enhance preservation efforts while also promoting the development of necessary housing. This will allow our older, historic communities to thrive in the next century and beyond while building a bridge from our past to a workable future of housing abundance.
Jonathan Berk is an experienced strategic urbanist, attorney, and policy innovator with over a decade of expertise in promoting reforms in housing, land use, and economic development through impactful public-private initiatives. He possesses deep knowledge of the structural obstacles to housing production and economic growth, such as regulatory hurdles and financing challenges, and has a proven track record of creating collaborative solutions that unlock opportunities and achieve measurable results. He is a skilled communicator, published thought leader, and a trusted advisor to policymakers, planners, and advocates working where policy, capital, and community intersect.