Dallas City Council rethinking street parking requirements

DALLAS - The city of Dallas is trying to rethink how much parking businesses really need to provide. 

The discussions could lead to the city reducing or eliminating parking requirements altogether. 

Senior Dallas City Planner Michael Wade says the parking problem is really a matter of driver habits and expectations that stem from a long-outdated city approach dating back to the 1950s. 

"At first, we would just stick our car in the grass in the park. We were park-ing," he said. "Then we had the foresight to pave. The water can go elsewhere, so we paved. Well, you know the song."

Now, Wade says many cities want to turn parking lots back into parks or housing and to encourage other forms of transportation. 

"What is not a city priority: ensuring free and abundant parking. I am not able to find that in our city policies. Regulations requiring minimum parking conflict with our city goals," Wade said.

While parking is at a premium during peak hours in areas like Bishop Arts and Lower Greenville, some Dallas leaders want the city to rethink the amount required for shops, hotels, and apartment complexes, where they say lots often sit empty.

"The zoning code requires every single bedroom in an apartment complex to be parked. So if you have a single parent living in one room and a kid or 2 kids in the other room, then the apartment complex still has to have two parking spaces for that apartment. It doesn't make sense in this modern era," said Councilman Chad West.

West says even parking for DART is overbuilt. 

"Almost every DART train station is massively over parked because most of them were built to maximum capacity of the one day of the year where you're gonna have full ridership, like probably on the State Fair Texas day," he said.

West says changes to the city's parking requirements could free up some valuable land at six DART stations. 

"Actually put housing there. Those parking lots are literally steps away from a train station. They're probably gonna take the train and may not need a car," he said.

But for the many who do need and want cars, Wade says not to worry. 

"Staff are not proposing parking maximums that some cities have established," Wade said. "Impact will be slow, slow glacially slow."

You can stay up to date on the city discussion by going to the project webpage and signing up for the email list.

Project website: https://bit.ly/dallasparkingcodeamend