Property owners in east downtown and part of Midtown will be exempt from Houston’s minimum parking requirements under an ordinance approved by City Council on Wednesday that allows developers to decide how many parking spaces businesses and residences require.

The move, proposed by Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration and largely backed by urbanists and business leaders, passed with District G Councilman Greg Travis casting the lone dissenting vote. The measure expands the use of so-called market-based parking, which already exists in the central business district.

Opponents of parking minimums say the requirements produce an excessive number of parking lots that eat up space in the urban core, making it harder to traverse cities on foot or by public transit. Cities around the country have moved in recent years to eliminate or soften minimum parking regulations.

Houston’s move to lift the parking minimums comes as public debate plays out over a proposed state project to remake Interstate 45 and ahead of a likely November vote in which the Metropolitan Transit Authority is expected to ask voters for authority to borrow $3.5 billion to support a wave of transit projects.

As council members weighed Turner’s proposal Wednesday, the discussion turned to the future of transportation and accessibility in Houston, where residents and development long have depended heavily on cars.

“It seems to me that in a city of 600-plus miles, that we not only are now, but we are going to continue to be a city that’s going to require access by vehicles of some sort — cars, Uber, whatever,” District J Councilman Mike Laster said. “I don’t know how we develop a comprehensive transportation plan in the city and the county and the region if you don’t implement a complementary parking plan to go with that.”

Urban planning experts generally say cities should seek to become less car-dependent as they become more dense, because cars take up a large amount of space, an argument made by Houston transportation planner Geoff Carleton in a recent Chronicle op-ed. Planners also say buildings located near public transit, such as Metro’s light rail lines in Midtown and EaDo, should provide less parking than those located elsewhere.

District I Councilman Robert Gallegos, who represents the East End, cited a study Wednesday concluding cities tend to require too much parking near transit stations, stymieing development on valuable land.

“More parking lots in our neighborhoods do not protect our neighborhoods,” Gallegos said. “We need to realize that nowadays with taxis, with Uber, with Lyft, with rail, with bikes, all these parking lots around transit centers are not needed.”

Travis, the sole vote against the measure, grappled with his support for the free market and cutting regulations with his concern that stripping parking minimums would produce “unintended consequences.”

“If you do not have enough adequate parking, you don’t have an adequate number of customers,” Travis said. “You can walk, skip, crawl, I don’t care what you do to get to these establishments. We are not high-density like New York.”

At-Large Councilwoman Amanda Edwards backed the measure and suggested the city should try to partner with private firms to build parking garages that she said could bring revenue to the city.

Before the measure came before city council, it passed through several rounds of public vetting and feedback. The city’s planning and development department introduced the concept last August to neighborhood groups and other stakeholders. Days later, the department brought the proposal before the city planning commission, which approved the measure, sending it to a city council committee.

Along the way, neighborhood group members weighed in at a series of public hearings. The chief opposition came from neighborhood leaders who said cars would overflow onto the streets of adjacent neighborhoods if businesses were not bound by parking minimums. Laster echoed that concern Wednesday.

Those who supported the measure noted it does not restrict property owners from providing parking.

“This does not mean that (developers) will not provide parking. It means they will provide as many parking spaces as the market dictates,” Hector Rodriguez, an administration manager with the planning department, told council members at a council committee meeting in March.

In recent weeks, the proposal appeared to meet more resistance from those who argued it does not go far enough.

The planning department’s first iteration would have exempted all of Midtown from the parking requirements. Turner agreed to remove east Midtown — south of McGowen and east of San Jacinto streets — from the exempted area, after Midtown super neighborhood leaders raised opposition to the measure.

Turner later shot down pleas from the Midtown Management District to fold east Midtown back in, though the mayor said he intends to remove parking minimums in east Midtown if the measure proves successful.

The planning department initially considered expanding market-based parking into the Fifth Ward, too. Rodriguez said department staff supported the idea, but wanted more time to hear public feedback.

Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Cohen, whose District C includes some of the exempted area, said she supported the measure despite some opposition from neighborhood group members.

“No one is going to be completely happy,” she said. “It’s a shared sacrifice, so there’s going to be a little discomfort on all sides. But it works. We have evidence that it works.”