On the second day of 2018 City Council meetings, the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee will take on the “neighborhood parking reform” proposal. We first wrote about it in mid-November, when the proposed changes to parking policy were released by the office of then-Mayor Tim Burgess. Wednesday’s 9:30 am committee meeting will bring the first official briefing for, and discussion by, councilmembers, according to the agenda circulated today, which includes this map:

The map (also viewable here, in PDF) shows areas of the city where the proposal would lead to reduction or elimination of parking requirements (see the legend at the bottom of the map, explaining the color coding). The proposal enables this by expanding the definition of “frequent transit service” to cover more areas. You can read a relatively short summary in this agenda attachment, or the long version in the “director’s report” here. Along with the change in parking requirements, it also lays out the rules for “flexible-use” and “shared” parking, intended to increase usage of what the city says is underutilized offstreet parking that already exists, or will be built, and it would require rental properties’ owners to “unbundle” parking so that renters who don’t want it aren’t required to pay for it. There are also some changes in requirements/allowances for car-sharing and bicycle parking, and also a provision to close a loophole that some said was leading to parking stalls that were too small to use – it would “require that non-required parking for residential and live-work uses meet the existing minimum size standards for parking spaces” (currently, the standards only apply to required parking). The full 138-page bill is here.

HOW TO COMMENT: This meeting isn’t scheduled to include a vote. But you can comment on this, or any other, proposed legislation by e-mailing and/or calling councilmembers – this page includes all that information, as well as details of which councilmembers are on which committees – our area’s Councilmember Lisa Herbold is a member of the PLUZ committee that will start this proposal’s review Wednesday.