California made history this year when Governor Newsom signed a long-sought reform to deregulate local parking requirements on infill projects (as I blogged about back in September). But could one provision of the new law undermine its effect on the ground?
The issue is a provision in AB 2097 (Subdivision 65863.2(f), for anyone following along at home) that ostensibly exempts from this law any local requirements for electric vehicle charging installations in multifamily dwellings or commercial properties or to allow accessibility to persons with disabilities. In other words, if a local government required not just parking (which would now be illegal under the new state law) but also parking specifically for EVs and those with disabilities, what happens to that second part of the requirement?
The implications are significant. A city with such an EV or disability-access requirement on the books could potentially argue that developers will still need to provide some minimum parking that has these features. In fact, they could use the requirements as a backdoor parking mandate where none otherwise now exists. While most people support EV charging and disabilities access requirements for parking spots, doing so in the context of this legislation would clearly contradict the intent and plain language of the law.
When AB 2097 passed, it specifically deregulated parking mandates that typically come from local zoning codes, which have traditionally required developers to build a certain number of parking spaces for each housing unit and/or each 1,000 square feet of building area. EV and ADA parking requirements, however, usually come from a different section of local requirements, namely the building codes. Often these require that a certain percentage of any parking spots meet the additional standards of offering electric vehicle charging and/or accessibility. Crucially, building codes do not usually require that developers build any amount of parking—just that when they do, the parking meets certain standards.
In response, AB 2097 specifically preserved these building-code percentage standards in order to ensure that any parking provided at least advances sustainability and accessibility goals. But the provision was not meant to provide an easy out for local governments to circumvent the law’s fundamental goal of ending parking mandates near transit. Otherwise, cities could simply mandate a minimum number of parking spaces that must include electric vehicle charging (a percentage of which would by law also be handicap-accessible), and then AB 2097 would cease to have any effect at all.
So take a city that requires 30% of all required parking to have an EV charger. In that instance, they might argue that AB 2097 in fact only bans 70% of the parking mandate. Following that logic, if the city mandated 100% of spaces must include EV charging, then AB 2097 would effectively ban zero percent of parking mandates. That outcome would completely negate the purpose and impact of the new law.
The effect could be detrimental to infill projects. Imagine a small-lot developer who wouldn’t otherwise build any parking spots on a site under AB 2097. If cities now insisted that the developer provide EV charging and disabilities access, the developer would have to build parking where none was contemplated. That means providing two discrete accessible paths of travel from the street: one from the sidewalk and one from a parking facility that wouldn’t otherwise be there. This outcome would likely lead to developers continuing to orient buildings around parking spots rather than pedestrian, bicycle and transit access.
Instead, the only defensible read of the provision is that if a city requires a certain percentage of parking spots to have EV charging and be accessible to those with disabilities, those percentages should still apply: but only if the developer decides to build any parking at all. If the developer opts out of on-site parking, then a percent of zero is zero. If the developer wants to provide only half the parking that would have been locally required under the old regime, then the number of EV and disabilities-accessible spots should be halved.
Ultimately, the point of AB 2097 was to reduce dependence on automobiles, enhance access to buildings by non-vehicle modes, and lower the cost of building all types of housing near transit. If there’s parking, then open it to EVs, those with disabilities, and other local requirements. But if none exists, local governments shouldn’t force requirements that run afoul of the law.
We’ll see if cities with these requirements try to exploit this provision. If so, it may take some state agency guidance to make this point, or worst case clean-up legislation to clarify. Otherwise, one of California’s most important climate and land use bills could face some unfortunate headwinds on implementation.
It took a decade, but the California legislature has finally delivered to the governor one of the most critical climate and equity bills in the country. No, it’s not mandating carbon neutrality or increasing renewable energy. It’s finally ending local mandates that all new housing and infill projects must include car storage, even if they’re located within half-mile of transit.
AB 2097 (Friedman) builds on work dating back to 2011 (I blogged about then-Assm. Skinner’s failed attempt) to finally end parking requirements for projects near transit and with a percentage of affordable units. Otherwise, too many local governments have not gotten the memo that California’s climate and equity goals require more housing near transit and reduced need for residents to drive vehicles. Instead, many cities and counties still rely on outdated boilerplate planning requirements that require developers to build parking spots, even if residents don’t want or need them. The spots can run anywhere between $30,000 and $90,000 each to build, increasing the cost of housing and making it less affordable as a result.
So why would the state want to allow locals to mandate car storage? In the past, powerful anti-housing local governments resisted such a state override. But cities and counties have mostly lost that fight. Instead the entrenched interests are those that insist that eliminating these requirements will somehow harm the provision of affordable housing. And if it sounds counter-intuitive to you that making housing cheaper and not mandating car storage hurts affordability, it’s because it is.
Here’s the problem: in California, building new housing requires navigating an incredibly complex soup of state and local requirements. Some advocates for affordable housing use this byzantine system to extract concessions from developers. So if someone proposes relaxing one of these requirements, no matter how nonsensical or counter-productive to the environment and affordability it may be, these advocates will only support doing so if they can extract a concession for more affordable housing in the process.
An example is the state’s density bonus program, in which developers can add more density and reduce parking on a project beyond what the local governments allow, but only if they provide more subsidized affordable units. These advocates therefore worry that ending local parking requirements statewide will eliminate this incentive to build more affordable units.
While that might sound right in theory, in practice it’s not correct at all. Developers make money on increased density — more units on the same parcel. The parking reductions are only valuable in that they allow greater density to be built on the same limited parcel. Basically, developers only request the reduction in parking spaces if it means they can squeeze in extra units.
We’ve seen this in practice. As Mott Smith from USC and Michael Manville at UCLA have documented in multiple years and cities, including in the Los Angeles Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) program, the evidence conclusively shows that reduced parking requirements lead to more affordable housing and does not undermine density bonus programs. Most prominently, in 2019, San Diego abolished parking requirements near transit for all housing projects (which is precisely what AB 2097 would accomplish statewide), and the results were decisive: overall housing units increased 24%, density bonus units increased five-fold, and deed-restricted affordable units via density bonuses increased six-fold.
The evidence is clear. California is behind on meeting its 2030 climate goals, and much of the culprit is due to rising transportation emissions from more driving. We also face a brutal housing shortage, leading to a mass exodus of residents to high-polluting states, pervasive homelessness, and stark income inequalities. AB 2097 would knit a solution to both problems, by making housing more affordable and reducing the need to own a car right near existing transit hubs.
After a decade of waiting, the state’s residents need this crucial reform to abolish car storage mandates. Let’s hope Governor Newsom does the right thing and signs AB 2097.
