City Council - Planning, Development, and Transportation Committee Hearing on Docket #0161

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and let the record reflect that my colleagues are getting along and I love to see it. Thank you so much. For the record, my name is Sharon Durkan. City Councilor for District 8, and I'm Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation. Today is December 9th, and the exact time is 2.04. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.plandev at boston.gov and will be made part of the public record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of the hearing. There will be a couple of individuals that we take out of order given their timing and schedules today. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they've signed up, and we'll have two minutes to testify.

If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you are looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, Megan, M-E-A-G-A-N dot C-O-R-U-G-E-D-O at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 0161. Order for hearing to explore amending the Boston Zoning Code to remove parking minimum requirements for new development. Today we are joined... Sorry, one second. Today we are joined by an administration panel, Devin Quirk, Deputy Chief of the Department of Planning, Jeff Thomas, Special Assistant to the Chief of Planning from the Planning Department. I don't know why it says Department of Planning, Planning Department. Jim Fitzgerald, Deputy Director of Planner Review, Planning Department.

I want to give all of my colleagues a chance to give a brief I have a brief opening statement because I know we have two panels and we have a lot of folks to testify. So I will do that. And for my colleagues in order of arrival, Before that, I will read my opening statement as the lead sponsor, and then we'll go to Councilor Flynn, Councilor Enrique Pepén, and then Councilor Murphy. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for being here. Welcome to the final hearing of the year. We saved the best for last. Time and time again this year we have asked ourselves what we as a body can do to address the most pressing issue facing Boston. Our shortage of affordable housing. Just last month we held a hearing on how legalizing ADUs and triple-deckers can open the door to more housing options. Today we're here to discuss something more procedural but just as impactful. and it seems like a little bit easier from the zoning code perspective.

The WARA zoning code creates barriers to housing by requiring parking minimums for new residential development. Let me reiterate what I've said before. Boston has a housing crisis, not a parking crisis. Eliminating parking minimums does not ban or eliminate parking. Written decades ago, these mandates set arbitrary baselines that no longer affect our transportation patterns or development needs. They create uncertainty, forcing projects to seek variances based on outdated requirements. This discussion is really about removing a veto point to housing. It's outdated. It's a one size fits all mandate, article by article, that slows down the process and stops housing from moving forward. The evidence is clear. Boston, like many cities, has overbuilt its parking. The Metropolitan Area Council is here today. They have a perfect Fitt parking study found that parking in Boston is underutilized, with nearly 30% of spaces sitting vacant even at peak times.

Every one of those unused spaces costs tens of thousands of dollars to build, limiting the number of homes that can be built and increasing costs for ones that are. These costs are passed on to tenants, raising housing burdens for residents regardless of whether they own a car. Eliminating parking minimums means acknowledging that our zoning code cannot possibly account for individual contacts of every single project and instead creating flexibility to provide the amount of parking that actually meets each project's needs. Hundreds of cities across the country have recognized this, including Austin, Texas, who we heard from last year, Seattle, Minneapolis, and our neighbors in Somerville, Cambridge, and Salem. New Bedford, Massachusetts' ninth largest city is poised to be next. I can't help but ask, are we falling behind? District 8 has led on this issue in the past. In 2021, former City Councillor Kenzie Bach eliminated parking mandates for affordable housing.

That was an important step, but the reality of housing today shows that that was not enough. We need to truly address affordability when supply better matches demand. In the Abundant Housing Massachusetts 2025 questionnaire, the mayor acknowledged that eliminating parking minimums for residential development would help achieve this. On paper, many of my colleagues agree. The real question is whether we will have the political leadership to actually get it done. In every city that has taken action, it was the city council that led. Eliminating parking minimums is a step towards creating a Boston that can meet the needs of residents today and for years to come. This also is not a silver bullet. We don't expect this to result in an avalanche of housing being built. But it's step by step. It's regulation by regulation that we need to address. In this economic moment, we need to do everything we can, and eliminating outdated parking mandates gives us the flexibility to actually get things done.

Our Heisling crisis demands that we examine every possible tool at our disposal, and so I'm happy that our last hearing of the year is one of such importance. I am thrilled. We've been joined by my colleague, Councilor Ben Weber. We are going to allow a brief opening statements from my colleagues, and then we'll go to the administration panel. Ed Flynn. Perfect attendance record in my committee. You are first.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The neighborhood I represent have absorbed as much housing in Article 80 developments as any neighborhoods or district and the City of Boston to help meet our housing goals. But what I hear most from constituents in Chinatown, the South End, South Boston, is our existing parking crisis. Many neighbors support development in their neighborhoods. when it works to address quality of life issues and makes compromises. But I can't stress enough what they do not want is exasperating existing parking issues on the street because we did not include enough parking in a development. There is nothing wrong with saying that you do not need a car to meet your responsibilities for your employment and family. I have many working families in Chinatown that rely on their car to work. Seniors and persons with disabilities who use their car

to make appointments, young families who use their car to take children from school to soccer, band practice, sports. They tell me, hey, Ed, I have no problem with the new development, but please keep the parking in the building So I'm not driving around 45 minutes for a spot. In my neighborhood of South Boston, at one time, there were 29,000 active resident parking permits in only 10,000 on-street parking spaces. Unsustainable. I advocated for a BTD audit that removed nearly 8,000 parking permits. In the final analysis, we have to support working families We have to support persons with disabilities, our seniors that need a car to take their children to a sporting event, an after-school program, tutoring. Some people need their car to go to work. Many people in Chinatown drive to a restaurant in the South Shore and North Shore. They need a vehicle so that they can get to the restaurant in time.

It's about respecting people that don't necessarily have the ability to afford other means of transportation. And we have to advocate for all people, especially residents that are struggling. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Enrique Pepen, you're next.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think it is very cool that this is the last hearing of the council agenda for this term. It's a very important one. Nothing rouses people up more like parking. So I can't wait for this conversation. I do see that this changes about flexibility and affordability. Parking minimums often force developers, especially small local builders to include expensive parking even when it isn't needed. Those costs then get passed directly to residents in the form of higher rents and home prices. Eliminate a minimum does not eliminate parking. As I was having a conversation with some of my colleagues before we started, It simply allows projects to include the right amount of parking for each neighborhood, rather than one size fits all requirements. It also supports our climate and mobility goals, which ensures we're not making people pay for parking spaces they may never use.

I look forward to the conversation today because I also hope that this helps debunk some of the myth that exists behind the parking requirements that may Some folks say, oh, so you're just going to get rid of parking in the city of Boston. No, that is not what we're talking about here today. We want to talk about parking smartly. I was having a conversation with Councilor Flynn before we started and how There's different ideas that we could come up with to create parking opportunities in a different method, but I think that we need to have these conversations here and learn about how parking minimums have actually prevented more housing from being built in the city of Boston. So thank you so much for this opportunity, Madam Chair. I look forward to the conversation here today.

Thank you so much, Councillor Pepén. Councillor Murphy, you're next.

and the advocate panelists who will be coming up. Looking forward to this conversation. Housing I believe must be a priority but I think eliminating all parking minimums is extreme and ignores neighborhood realities. Boston desperately needs more housing. We need more affordable units, more options for families and seniors, and more opportunities for our teachers, nurses, first responders and working people to stay in the city they love. Housing has to be a priority if we want Boston to remain livable, equitable, and sustainable. But supporting more housing does not mean abandoning common sense. eliminating all residential parking minimums, which I do understand does not mean eliminating all parking altogether, but eliminating all residential parking minimums across the entire city is extreme. It goes far beyond modernization.

I believe it ignores how people actually live in our neighborhoods and it risks creating new burdens for the very families we are trying to help. Boston is a city of diverse communities. What works in the seaport or along major transit corridors does not automatically work in High Park, West Roxbury, or parts of Dorchester, East Boston, or Mattapan. For many residents, a car is not a lifestyle choice. It is a necessity. Nurses and home health aid workers getting to and from their overnight shifts, grandparents care for young children, which I can say I am one of them now who needs a car to pick up my grandson. Tradespeople carrying equipment from job to job. Many workers begin before the first train or end after the last one leaves. Public transit does not meet every need or every schedule. If the City eliminates all parking minimums, developers will not stop people from owning cars.

They will simply stop building parking. As a result, more cars will spill onto already crowded neighbourhood streets. That to me is not smart planning. That is not equity. It is not fair to the families who already struggle to find a place to park near their own home. We should absolutely encourage transit-oriented development. We should allow flexibility where it makes sense. We should continue exploring policies that reduce costs to promote sustainable growth. But a blanket citywide elimination of all parking minimums is not thoughtful planning. It is an approach that places ideology above reality. A better path forward includes flexible parking requirements based on transit access, incentives instead of mandates for low parking developments, strong parking management plans for projects that will reduce parking, and rail engagement with the neighborhoods that feel the direct impact.

Our responsibility is to support housing production without creating new problems for residents. And we cannot do that by pretending every household in Boston can or should live without a car. Boston deserves policies that reflect our values, our diversity and the day to day realities of the people who call this city home. And for these reasons, I'm looking forward to the conversation but don't think a one size fit all elimination of parking minimums is the way to go. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilor Murphy. We've been joined by Vice Chair, Councilor Fitzgerald. We've been joined by Councilor Santana, who's a co-sponsor of this docket, and Councilor Coletta Zapata. Next, we'll go to Councilor Weber. You have the floor. And just be mindful, we're all going to have time, and we definitely have two panels. So I just want to keep this just to your general thoughts and opening statements.

Yeah, thanks. I'll be brief. I just want to echo Councilor Pepén in saying that this is a discussion that warrants having It's not to eliminate parking in the City of Boston. While allowing parking, it seeks to eliminate The use of parking minimums as a tool to block housing as happened in my district in Jamaica Plain recently with Turtle Swamp Brewery. using parking minimums to try to block Low Threshold Housing and Senior Affordable Housing in my neighborhood. I don't think any of us want to see that. I don't... Know why we can't let the market decide on parking.

If you're building an apartment building in Back Bay and people don't really need parking, they can ride the subway. You don't have to offer it. If you're building a structure in West Roxbury, you're going to want to offer parking because people are going to need their cars. And to sell those units, you're going to offer parking. We can't use that instead of setting. having sort of a minimum. And I heard one size fits all. I feel like that's what we have now. And it's too often used as a tool to block the housing that we need. I'd like to see that end and for a more sensible approach to this issue. Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you so much, Councilor Weber. Next, we're hearing from Vice Chair, Councilor John Fitzgerald.

Thank you very much chair and thank you to both panels for being here today. Here's my fear with this, and I understand that it is not eliminating parking, as many have said, and we understand that this is just eliminating the minimum requirement. but here's what I see happening at least even just where around where I live right because I try and put myself in the shoes of just the average constituent sitting there and saying Okay, I've got a single family home. I'm in a neighborhood of ones and twos, maybe a couple, three decades in certain areas. Developers are coming in and buying the ones and the twos and saying, I'm going to put six to eight townhouses, and in some cases egregiously more, to be honest. Not that I don't want more housing, but in the context of the neighborhood, it is out of place. And if we were to eliminate a parking minimum, my fear is developers would take advantage of that and say, I am now going to add

8 to 10 units at the former one or two unit property. I'm not going to provide any parking, or at the very least, here's three spots for and whatever X many bedrooms that are there. Now, when that house is rented out or owned by a family, cars are required. They will have to What they'll have to do is they'll end up parking further down the street away from their house. And what that happens is they'll park in front of my house. Now, here I am trying to raise my family. I can't get the groceries or my kids out in front of their own house that I'm a homeowner of. And so I'm going to start getting aggravated, driving around the block trying to find a place to park. And now I got to carry the groceries a block away. And I'm going to say, this isn't worth it. and I'm outta here. And I think that's what a lot of families are gonna do over time if we allow sort of a, up to the discretion of

Whatever this elimination means, right? I have a parking requirement minimum. I feel it could be manipulated that only further drives families out It only further rises the rent speculative market and then we become a completely transient city. There are some places where I can absolutely understand, hey, there's no need. You're across from the T Station and we're building transit-oriented development around dense housing, around a transit unit. or if it's closer to downtown. Those are decisions people can make when moving in there. My fear is for new build, if and when that comes back, that that will be how it would be taken advantage of. and I think it actually is a detriment to most homeowners once they realize how it will affect them. That's all for now, but from both panels, that's what I'd love to sort of understand, right? Talk to me about me in that position. But otherwise, thank you very much, and Chair, I appreciate the time.

Thank you so much, Vice Chair Fitzgerald. Councillor Santana, who is a co-sponsor of this docket, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair Durkan, and thank you for including me in this, being a second co-sponsor. I really appreciate both panels that we're going to be hearing from today. I appreciate having the chamber full. This conversation is long overdue. I think I want to echo just a few of my colleagues' comments. I'm a co-sponsor of this because I support eliminating parking minimums here in the city of Boston. Last year, alongside some of my colleagues, we were able to bring and invite a coalition from Austin, Texas, city councilors and people from the administration, and see how they've done that, eliminating parking minimums down there and the effects I get that this conversation is going to warrant opposition and support on both sides. Fitzgerald. And I think, you know, people are afraid of what's going to happen, as Councilor Fitzgerald just mentioned to themselves, right? What's going to happen?

How is this going to affect my family? How is this going to affect my neighbors? And what I will say is that right now we're in the midst of a housing crisis. And right now we are losing people and residents and families because of the lack of affordable housing here in the city of Boston. So the system that we have currently right now is not going to work. and this again I think many of my colleagues have expressed won't eliminate parking right it would just we will be able to decide what's the appropriate amount for each development and I think I very much agree with Councilor Weber. I've heard the one size fits all. That's currently what we have right now. A one size fits all minimum. We have a parking minimum requirement across all of our neighborhoods. And I feel that if we want more housing, if we want more affordable housing, This is a tool that we can use to do just that.

I'm very intrigued to hear from the administration and hear what your thoughts, the data that you all may have. and maybe data that we've seen from other cities. I'm hearing, looking forward to hearing from the advocates on both sides of how this could be a good thing for Boston, a bad thing for Boston. But ultimately, the system that we have right now does not work for our most vulnerable families. I think eliminating parking minimums will create more affordable housing and I think parking needs to be a different conversation of how we're going to be addressing that. How do we use our municipal lots to further assist with our residents. But looking forward to this conversation. I think it's long overdue. And I'm very excited that a lot of my colleagues are here to participate in that conversation. And again, thank you, Chair Durkan. I think we've talked about this many times.

I think it takes leadership and courage to put something like this forward. and to have a conversation about it. I'm looking forward to the next steps. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilor Santana and Councilor Coletta Zapata. I look forward to calling you a new title soon.

You have the floor. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to keep my opening comments very brief. Just really looking forward to getting into the conversation in the weeds. I did go back into Plan East Boston to understand what we did there. and look forward to using that as an example of what is possible where at least in that proposal we sought to simplify parking control and zoning by consolidating use categories and focusing on regulating spaces per square foot for residential units alone. And then we also proposed eliminating minimum parking ratios in mixed-use squares. So we'd love to understand how that has what how that has been in in real time and how what the impacts have been on businesses and residents alike and just look forward to this conversation it's very nuanced and so again look forward to getting into the details thank you

Thank you so much, Councilor Coletta Zapata. Next, we're going to hear just an opening statement from the administration, but I want to acknowledge that city councilor from Cambridge, Burhan Azim, is here. I am going to let him go out of order because I know he has to get back to his seat. I would love to hear your opening statement and then we'll go to his public testimony.

It's an honor to be here in your closing hearing of the year. Happy to be here to answer your questions. No long opening statement today. Just want to generally say that we're here to...

We're hearing some feedback, so let's see if that can... Is there something wrong?

So moving down. No long opening statement today. Just here to answer your questions. We want to get to the community testimony as quickly as possible. I also want to say that the three of us, Jim, Jeff, and I are here filling in for Kathleen Onifer, who is our Deputy Director for Zoning Reform. She is a font of knowledge on this issue, and she apologizes for being sick today and not being able to be here. But we'll certainly take questions back to her. A couple of points I just want to highlight The opening, we of course deeply believe that affordability is central to this conversation. Building unnecessary parking does increase housing costs. We want to address that issue. That's something housing costs are, I think we all agree, are one of the fundamental, most important issues that we need to be dealing with in our city. We also want to be dealing with the predictability of our zoning code. There are times where our parking restrictions are arbitrary. Thank you.

Thank you. Just adding to housing costs, and that's something that we want to be looking at eliminating wherever possible. As was mentioned by several of you as well, we want to be incentivizing public transportation usage, creating opportunities for people to use the transportation networks and get to work in not single occupancy vehicles. and there are areas in our city where we have already eliminated parking minimums and they are generally working. That all said, we also deeply believe in engagement. This is an issue where I think you have all highlighted there are passionate feelings on both sides. It is important for us to be engaging in those conversations and thinking about

The neighborhood-specific impacts of parking minimums and having nuanced conversations around how those could be addressed. So those are our general principles. Happy to talk in specifics as we get into it. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'm going to let City Councilor Burhan Azim from Cambridge come forward and give his public testimony, and then we're going to get into questions. You can go to either of these mics.

All right. Well, it's always fun to be in a different chamber than yours. Hi, everyone. My name is Burhan Azim. I'm a city councilor in Cambridge. It's nice to be here. Thank you for welcoming me in your warm city and a lot of friends I know here. I just wanted to start off by saying two things. One is, of course, many families need a car and they need a place to park. And then the second is that I'll be talking a little bit about the experience of Cambridge. But of course, Boston is not Cambridge. Boston is not Somerville. Boston is its own set of communities that represents a diverse range of people. And I think that parking minimums are actually something that flatten that diversity rather than encourage it. You know, there's been a whole range of communities that have removed parking minimums over the last year. They represent communities close by like Cambridge and Somerville, communities that are a little further away like Salem, communities that have a lot of transit access like Manhattan. and communities that don't really have any transit access at all, like Austin.

There's been a whole range of communities of all different types that have decided that parking minimums are something that do not make sense. We often think about young professionals as people in particular whom this might benefit, right? You're a young professional, you live near the train, maybe you as a specific individual are someone who does not need a parking spot. but it's all about a lot of other families as well. In Cambridge, there's been experiences, and the first example of someone who decided to take advantage of us removing parking minimums was not a new development, but it was actually an older home belonging to an 80-year-old woman whose children did not visit as often as they should and who did own a car but rather wanted to turn her rather large parking lot into an unpaved mint garden, which perhaps you shouldn't because mint is a weed, but she was able to do so because once you removed parking minimums you could still keep your car there over an unpaved parking lot but parking is defined as a sheet of asphalt which she did not need or want on her property and so it was about flexibility for her. And there's also many others.

We often think about the elderly and how many older residents need a car and perhaps don't want to walk or take the transit. But a lot of our elderly have different needs as well. My own dad is losing his eyesight and can't drive as often. And so instead, families like that or older residents who have different sorts of needs you're making them pay for a parking spot that they may not use. There's another thing that's not required in our housing or development codes that I think is a great example. It's the closet. The closet is not in any building code, and yet every home has a closet. Some are small, some are big, but they're not required, but they still exist. And I think that's what the experience has been in Cambridge, where once we removed parking minimums, most developments still had parking, but instead it was able to fit the size and flexibility of that family and that need. and in a community that's diverse as in a community that is as diverse as Boston. You have a lot of range of places from places that families that need no cars to need one to need three and removing parking minimums really helps encourage that diversity of life.

and I'll say in general, the removal of parking minimums passed almost unanimously in Cambridge and very similarly in Somerville. But in the whole range of communities that we've talked about, not one has either repealed or re-added parking minimums after the repeal, but also not one of them has tried. This is a very modest but incremental step forward that will help housing development and will not change the city overnight and hopefully will serve as a good example for the rest of the country as well and the rest of the region. Thank you.

Thank you so much, City Councilor Burhanazim. And then we have to take one person out of order who I know has some other commitments, which I think offers a really important perspective. Peter Spellios. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Councilors. Thank you for the time. Thanks for the opportunity to speak in support of this docket. My name is Peter Spellios. I'm a principal with Transom Real Estate in Boston. In 2013, I came before the city seeking permission to remove all parking requirements from a long stalled project just down the street at Lovejoy Wharf. If required, parking would have stopped the project from moving forward yet another generation without this project happening. Even though it was located adjacent to North Station and surrounded by an abundance of public transportation, eliminating parking was seen as a bold ask. The city's approval of that bold ask resulted in our ability to construct and welcome Converse's world headquarters to Boston and the hundreds of employees with it, and to complete the first parking-free high-rise residential condominium in Boston successfully. 12 years later, I'm again before you in the city of Boston seeking your support for eliminating parking minimums. I've spent most of my career in housing and in Boston. I come before you today with a simple belief.

Anything a person needs to live should not be out of reach. That especially includes housing. Stable, attainable, reasonably priced housing for everybody at every stage of their life. One of the most direct practical steps the city can take to achieve this goal is to eliminate parking minimums. Parking minimums are one of the quieter but most powerful drivers that make housing unaffordable. There is a common misconception that developers, like myself, oppose minimum parking because we don't want to build it. That we propose just enough to convince the city and our neighbors to support our projects. Any seasoned developer understands that parking is an essential component of a successful project. We propose and seek to build parking that is needed for people that will live there and that will work there. Enough to support the project's long-term viability and financeability, but not so much that it adds unnecessary costs. Mandatory parking minimums force us to construct more parking than anyone will ever use.

Every unnecessary parking space increases costs and those costs don't vanish. They flow directly into higher rents and higher sales prices at a time when the city is asking for more and more affordable housing production. What makes this issue so compelling is that removing parking minimums aligns virtually everyone's interests. It lets developers design responsibly based on actual demand. It reduces the cost of producing new housing, and most importantly, it reduces the cost that residents ultimately pay to live here. Eliminating parking minimums is a practical, data-driven way to bring down costs, and I look forward to contributing to this conversation. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Peter. So I'm going to read a letter into the record for my colleague, Councilor Liz Breadon, and then we'll get into questions. Dear Chair Durkan, I regret that I'm unable to attend this afternoon's hearing on Docket 0161. As the Chair of the Council's Committee on Housing and Community Development, I am required to attend a meeting of the Neighborhood Housing Trust scheduled at the same time as this hearing. As a City Councilor for Alston-Brighton, I would like to voice my support for the removal of off-street parking minimums for new residential development. My reasons for support include the following. Construction cost. I'm actually going to abbreviate her letter a bit. Hopefully she doesn't mind. Construction cost. De facto reduction in off-street parking for large Article 80 projects. From 2020 to 2025, the de facto parking ratio for Article 80 residential developments in Alston-Brighton has been approximately 0.5.

For all large Article 80 residential projects in the City of Boston, parking ratios are already determined through the Article 80 process, rather than by underlying zoning requirements. Furthermore, the Boston Transportation Department has maintained maximum parking ratio guidelines for all Article 80 projects development since 2001. Small residential projects are still subject to underlining zoning requirements, which places further cost burdens on developers of missing middle housing. This de facto removal of parking minimums for large Article 80 residential projects should be applied to all residential development in Boston. prior elimination of off-street parking minimums for affordable housing. In 2021, the Boston Zoning Code was amended to eliminate off-street parking minimums for affordable housing developments. by allowing the amount of off-street parking included in these projects to be determined by such factors as resident need. For example, the Faneuil Gardens redevelopment project in Brighton approved in 2024 still includes 154 off-street parking spaces.

While I support the removal of parking minimums, I understand that today's hearing is only the start of the conversation. Members of my staff will be in attendance and I look forward to reviewing the recording of this important hearing. I kindly ask that you read this letter into the record. Sincerely, Liz Breadon. Okay. So next we're going to go to questions. I'm going to start with a couple of teasers, and then I'm going to go to my colleagues, because I think it's important that we really uplift every perspective. I think Councilor Brayton's letter really gets at that this is the beginning of a conversation. So this is my question to the administration. Over 100 cities across the country have eliminated parking minimums and many others, including San Francisco and New York City, have significantly scaled them back. Nearby cities like Somerville and Cambridge with far less transit access than Boston have already taken action. I'm sorry, I should have said Salem.

Given that our city is in a housing crisis and that eliminating parking minimums is a simple solution to remove a barrier to housing, why hasn't Boston already moved forward on this?

A great question, Councilor, and I appreciate the viewpoint that it's a start of a conversation. So maybe one place to start is that there are places in the city where we have Eliminated parking minimums that have very serious parking restrictions as well. So there's parking freezes that exist in the downtown core, in South Boston, in East Boston as associated with the airport. So there are strong regulations in place, and many of those have been in place since the 1980s. In the downtown core, for many of the zoning districts, there's been no parking minimum for a large period of time. And then as we've been doing the squares and streets rezoning, we've applied it in Mattapan and in Roslindale Square. That zoning also has no parking minimum, so we've updated that in a couple of places. Councilor Coletta referred to this in East Boston. In East Boston, if I'm getting the stats right, and Jeff and Jim can correct me if I'm wrong,

I think for one to three family development, we eliminated parking minimums when we passed that zoning two or three years ago. And in Charlestown, when we did the rezoning around the same time, we eliminated parking minimums for one to seven unit zoning. Slowly but surely, addressing this issue neighborhood by neighborhood, we're currently in a large scale planning process in

So just to take that term slowly and surely, is the pace of change fast enough for the housing needs of the city of Boston?

Yeah, I think it's important for us to be able to have these conversations with communities. I think the parking requirements, as was already mentioned by several of the counselors, matter. And I think it's important for us to think about the zoning that's already in place. So our perspective is it's probably better to address everything all at once. I want to highlight Councilor Fitzgerald's point around what might be built on his street near him. If we eliminate parking minimums today without addressing the other factors around what could be built on that street. It does introduce some risks. I think over time, we're generally supportive of eliminating the parking minimums. We should also put a zoning code in place that's enforceable so it's predictable what housing would be built on that street.

Do we know how many projects go to the Zoning Board of Appeals specifically per parking variance each year? And I do want to announce that we've been joined by Councilor Brian Rowe.

Roughly a third of all CVA cases are directly parking related.

And do you know how many of those end up becoming in sort of a legal battle over that parking from nearby abutters?

And we don't have the, I don't have, I could probably get that to you, but I don't have the statistic off the top.

I do know there are some obviously famous cases of the city of Boston pursuing, you know, supportive housing and neighborhoods and ending up in,

Weber brought that up in his opening statement. There have certainly been times where the ZBA variance for parking has been challenged and resulted in a particular famous case of Turtle Swamp Brewing. and affordable housing development being delayed for a significant period of time. That is a good example of why unnecessary parking minimums are not a good

and a project for Pine Street Inn, something that we all support. So can you elaborate on how parking minimum requirements create a legal vulnerability for the city about how outdated standards affect our ability to defend our zoning decisions?

So when a developer is seeking a variance for the parking minimum, they need to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals. The decisions of the Zoning Board of Appeals can be very easily challenged by abutters. That doesn't mean the standards are very capricious. That doesn't mean those challenges often win, but they often go to court. So that means that there can be significant delays from building housing as a result of having to defend the necessity for a variance.

And do you know how much it cost to build a parking spot in Boston? Okay, so the planning department's website says up to $50,000 per parking spot. I mean, that's obviously underground. Yeah, yeah.

That's for like above grade parking structure. Below grade is a lot more than that, $70,000.

More than $50,000.

Yes, that's more for structured parking.

So you'd surmise to say that that has an impact on the price of housing in Boston?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Good to get it on the record. Okay, I'm going to go to my colleagues in order of arrival. Councilor Flynn, you're next.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Jeff, just want to ask you, you mentioned one-third of the Cases up at the ZBA are probably related to parking requirements. Is it safe to assume that of the one-third, most of them do get approved by the ZBA where parking is not enforced or parking is eliminated?

I'm not sure what the rate is for approval on those cases. I just know that from the cases that go to the board, a third of those have direct parking.

I think most of them do support the Recommendation of the city administration, I would say, though.

If Kathleen were here, she would know this number by heart. I can absolutely get it to you. I wouldn't say that. It's a slam dunk if the city supports the removal of parking or any variance that it happens. We do submit a planning recommendation for every ZBA hearing, and our recommendations are not always followed.

With the BPDA in my neighborhood in South Boston, they do encourage developers not to add parking.

So I think it depends on the specifics of the

A lot of developers do tell me that they were asked by the BPDA not to include parking in their proposal, and then they would come to me with their proposal. and then I have to advocate for more parking or parking so residents can take their kids to dance recital or tutoring or someone needs their car to visit their sick mother. That's that's where I'm coming from.

Yeah. So we want to deeply agree with you that parking is in fact necessary in a lot of cases. That's well established from the conversation here. There are times where we have advocated to eliminate parking, and there's times when we have advocated to change the configuration of parking. So for example, there are I can think of someone in your district where the parking took up the entire first floor and so there was no activated retail. We pushed to eliminate parking or portions of parking in those cases or move parking underground. I don't want to speak. Maybe I should let Jim respond to this as well.

When it comes to my district, I know exactly what my constituents want. I listen to them every day, every night. I go to every community meeting. I work in my district seven days a week. They tell me specifically, Ed, we need parking. We have to visit our family member. I have to get to work. I have to... Be at a certain place to take my kids to tutoring. It's necessary for me as a family person to have a car. And then I would go back to them. I said, well, the BPDA said you don't need one to. So that's where I'm at is I still have to advocate for my constituents because that's what's most important for me is their quality of life and supporting their family. They can't support a family if they don't have an automobile to take their child to tutoring.

Other people can jump in an Uber and get there but working class families, it's just tough to do that. They do need a vehicle to do these necessary activities in their life.

Yeah, but thank you for that, Councillor. And I think maybe going back to your original question about the BPA's position and the Planning Department staff's position on parking, when we're taking a position on parking in general where you're Seeing this dialogue in public, it's generally in the context of an Article 80 project. It's probably important for us to introduce into this conversation the fact that in our zoning regulations today, any Article 80 project where we're going through a community process supersedes the parking minimums. So that those are sort of regardless of whether We change the parking minimums in the city, you would still experience the same thing on those projects because those projects do not have parking minimums.

What will happen is when this will be implemented, we all know it's going to be implemented, but what will happen is long-time families that need a car will have to move out of the city and young people that don't necessarily need a car will take their spot. So we're not helping families stay in the city, because a lot of families rely on an automobile to do things, and they need our support. We have to keep them in the city. I don't want to push them away from our neighborhoods. Thank you, Madam Chair. My time is up. I want to be respectful to my other colleagues.

Thank you, Councilor Flynn. Councilor Pepén, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I kind of want to counter a little bit of what my colleague was mentioning about because I think that there's a very false narrative out there that Low-income families have cars. There's a lot of people that can't afford to have a car. And if we're telling them you have to have a car and you have to pay Thank you. Thank you. That's the first place where we should be focusing on. And that's why whenever I hear folks, it's just like parking for low-income families. Yes, many of them have cars, but many of them do not have cars, which is why The 28 bus, which runs right through my district, is the number one used bus in the entire MBTA system.

And it's starting to get used even more once it was made free. And it's just... Sorry, I'm going on a tangent. I know that this is... Parking minimums is correlated to housing, it's correlated to transportation, it's correlated to zoning, which is why we need to work on all these topics together and not as a one-off situation, which is why I really did appreciate despite the numerous amounts of meetings in my districts that squares and streets did start in Rossignol Square and in Mattapan Square in my area. It allowed me to look at how zoning and parking minimums go hand in hand Fitzgerald's point about worrying about if my residential street, if a new development comes up and it's going to bring so and so many more residents that may have a car, I think that when we do these things hand in hand with zoning, We're able to create a world or a city where zoning becomes predictable.

And we know that in the immediate, for example, for Rossignol Square, I know where development is going to happen now. and I know what is there to be predicted. We have a case going to the planning department on Thursday where it's the first one, 100% affordable, senior housing in the middle of Rossignol Square with no parking minimums. But we are still very much having conversations about traffic mitigation and about how can we make sure that the businesses are part of the conversation and that the residents know that public transportation is very much an option. It doesn't mean that we get rid of The parking conversation, it just means that we're being more aggressively proactive with building housing in the city of Boston. Which leads me to, sorry, which leads me to ask the first question, which is

I'm pretty sure at the planning department and everywhere else, we've seen that it is very difficult for a local developer or smaller scale developer to build in the city of Boston, especially when they have to meet the required parking minimum. which is the blanket uniform law right now. Will this make it easier for local developers to actually get their projects off the ground if we were to say, you don't have parking minimums, at the moment. You don't have to worry about parking minimums.

I think we can say that it is certainly empirically true that there's a cost to building a parking space. and sometimes that is a necessary cost as was mentioned in some of the public testimony and that whether from a development or community perspective that some people may want that parking space added and I think maybe to your opening around then The diversity of our neighborhoods. I mean, this is also not one size fits all. Our transportation department does mobility scoring across our neighborhoods. There are some neighborhoods in Boston that have exceptional access to transit that are also often exceptionally dense. where the built form of parking is often going to be structured or underground and that is very expensive. And then we have some areas of Boston that are very low density residential where the parking typology is often

Driveway, which is not that expensive, all things considered, but has its own trade-off conversations around open space or the ability to build sort of like an accessory dwelling unit or other design implications. The way that we want to have this conversation is, once again, a little bit more geography by geography, neighborhood by neighborhood. But yes, parking has a cost.

Yes, and I've heard that the number is like $50,000 per parking space. I don't know if that's correct or not, but that's the numbers that I see me throwing around. and different projects and I love that you mentioned that because it kind of it gets rid of that understanding that this is going to be a blanket all no parking minimums across the entire city it's going to be We have an approach where we're going to be able to see different requirements in different neighborhoods. I know that Councilor Flynn District 2, Councilor Durkan District 8, myself District 5, we have different neighborhoods. different expectations. People move differently in our districts. I'm obviously way further away from downtown compared to both Councilor Durkan and Councilor Flynn. So I think this is a great conversation. I'm glad that we're getting ahead of the conversation as well because something that I'm worried about is that People that may be against this may portray it as an overall getting rid of parking spaces across the entire city of Boston. I think we have to be very proactive with the messaging here to make sure that we show them that this is not what we're talking about.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I just want to say that I know the other Fitzgerald, Jim, has said that it was $50,000 for an above-grade parking spot, up to $50,000 for above-grade, but below-ground is even more. Parking Slope Spot. So I also want to be clear. I wish we were getting ahead of the conversation. Unfortunately, 100 cities across the country have Weber. You have five minutes.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Pepén. I apologize for a tangent. I'll give them a tangent. When I represented migrant farm workers in the South, you know, there was an overtime exemption for our agricultural workers or farm workers. We've been in the federal wage laws since 1938. Everyone assumed that there was like a solid economic reason why you couldn't pay farm workers overtime. Well, when you looked into it, the reason why it was put in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was because FDR needed to make a compromise with Southern Democrats. And the way to get that done was to exclude people of color from minimum wage and overtime pay. And the way to do that was to exclude farm workers. So I feel like we're looking at a parking minimum. We just don't know. What the reason is, why this is there in the first place, and it's not necessarily because this is well thought out. Can you just tell us, you know, my sense is it's put in mid-century,

To help people transition to cars. What do you tell people for why we even have parking minimums?

That's another great question where I'm sure Kathleen would actually know the detailed history of how that came to be in Boston. I will just maybe generalize and say that there are some things in our zoning code that are very well thought out and some things that are not. And there are some things in our zoning code that are intentionally restrictive. And I think one of the, One of the major goals of this administration in our efforts to reform the zoning code is to make it enforceable. so that the restrictions we put in place, we plan to enforce. Mostly the 70s and 80s, Boston was intentionally down zoned with a viewpoint It was a generally positive progressive one that there should be more community debate around development, but that had the unintended consequence of making it very hard to do development, very hard to build housing, and then ultimately everything became and when you have no rules, everything is on the table.

So we're in the process of reforming our zoning code in a place where we are very intentional about the form that we want to see in our neighborhoods into our earlier points.

More process for the process.

Yeah, but we want to do this in a way that will actually have this debate in each community so that we can really build trust along the way.

Yeah, I mean, in my district, we celebrate Wake the Earth every May. about the decision not to put the highway through the Southwest Corridor. There were times where we prioritized highways, cars in our development as a city I kind of see the parking minimums as part of that sort of Robert Moses-esque development philosophy. So what would be the impact if we just change the, I feel like the parking minimum is like a presumption that we're going to You have to put these in. If you're not going to put them in, you have to go through the process. If we flip that and said, you're going to go through the Article 80 process. We're not going to require it. But in terms of the character of the neighborhood and all those other things, We may want you to put them in. We're just sort of, you need a zoning variance for other reasons.

I think it's important to explain the difference between parking minimums and parking maximums, right? So the parking minimums are whether or not the developer wants to build it. This is necessary. This must be built. Otherwise, you must go to the zoning board of appeal. We also have parking maximums, which generally exist as policy advanced by our transportation department, BTD. And those are, through our processes, if you're looking to build parking, we are not going to and so on. And then we also have approved parking if it exceeds that ratio. Those ratios are different based on different types of uses and different geographies and really tied deeply to the mobility scores of our neighborhoods. Commercial Development in an area that has low mobility scores, you're going to absolutely need significant parking, and you're going to need parking for residents as well. but that's different from the minimum which is required whether or not the developer wants to build it.

If I could add to the effects of parking minimums are I think had the most impact on small scale existing buildings that are trying to build something new or do an addition or Infield Development, rather than the Article 80s. Now, just because we have jurisdiction to have that conversation over what the right parking balance is when it comes to an Article 80 level, The real impact when it comes to ZBA cases and things like that, that's at a smaller scale. So that's planning rather, upfront planning rather than the project by project.

Sorry to cut you off, Jeff. Just one quick question as the time goes. We talked about Turtle Swamp. Eventually, those projects went through, but there was... because you could challenge the approval of the variance. Can you just talk about the delay, what kind of impact that had or that has on a project and the cost?

You might know the details for that particular development Better than I do, Councilor, but I certainly know they spent significant money both on legal fees to defend their case and ultimately win it, and then housing construction costs go up over time, and there's inflation, there's holding costs to maintain the land. Delay has real six-figure costs, maybe into the millions of dollars oftentimes. So thinking very critically about where we want to introduce the risk of that delay is really important.

Thank you. Any of my constituents here, I apologize. I will watch the rest of this. I have a group of Girl Scout troop at the Curley waiting for me, so thank you.

We love Girl Scouts, former Girl Scout over here. Thank you, Councilor Weber. Next, we'll go to Vice Chair, Councilor Fitzgerald. You have five minutes on the floor.

Thank you very much. I'll first start off by saying I actually hate cars, right? I think for safety reasons, when you have kids, it's the biggest, it's my number one fear, people's erratic driving, the environmental impact. I did not buy my first car until I was 39 years old and surprisingly that wasn't actually that long ago. Right? So I was always a child of the tea and good friends and family, as they say, right? To get around. But I say that I worry a couple of things here. One, a couple of things I see. I worry about developers taking advantage of this, like I said before. I see people in the neighborhoods paving into their backyards to allow for driveway to make their own off-street parking, which means less permeable land. Yeah, we might be taxing them more on that,

but now it turns when I look out my back window which was once my neighbor's backyard is now three car headlights shining right in my kitchen window in my kids backyard playing right Do we have anyone on either panel that is going to advocate for the other side of this argument, Chair?

No, but I think my colleagues are doing a great job at that.

Well, but that becomes honestly the problem where we have to sort of... take on that role to make sure we are looking at both sides. I would find it interesting to find somebody that would advocate on the other side because then We have to do it at the discretion of our constituents.

But that's our job. I mean, I put forward a hearing order to talk about this proposal, so that's why we're talking about it.

Chair, I'm not here to argue. I just want to ask the question. Is anyone here proposing? If there is not... Ultimately, the question I have is this, who decides parking and where then? If this goes into effect, right? If we're gonna each development, there is no minimum, who is the final arbiter that says, Three spots for this project, 10 spots for this project, etc. I just want to make sure that is clear.

I think it really depends on the context of the project, right? So if it's going through Article 80, then it's the planning department and the BPDA board. If it's going through, if it's below that threshold, it's that building commissioner. But at the end of the day, there may be no park. If there are no other variances needed, and we have eliminated parking minimums, then the development can go forward without any parking. And I think that's correct me if I'm wrong, Jim, but that is a fact. And I also want to take this opportunity to clarify the administration's position where Well, very interested by this and we'll follow this very closely. Our current position is not to eliminate parking minimum citywide all at once. It is to work district by district.

Understood. Thank you. Do we know how many projects would get in the ground? that are currently not able to if we eliminate parking requirements. Are there any in the pipeline? Do we have any percentage of what would get going to create housing?

I do not know the answer to that question. That's a great question.

Yeah, we don't have a number, but there are proponents that have been reaching out to us to adjust their parking and adjust their projects accordingly to try to make it financeable.

Right.

I see the duty of municipal government to be flexible to the times, right, and adapt and change as sort of the environments change. I too would like more housing and more affordable housing. Is there, and this is related to my last question about how many, if we get rid of them, how many units go off the ground? If we were to lower the affordability percentage in projects, do we have an idea of how many projects would actually be able to get into the ground?

I don't have that answer for you either. I think in many cases it's that lowering it to zero may not be enough to get that housing produced today just based on the cost of construction and interest rates. but at that certain point, inclusionary housing also does have a cost.

I'm well aware of how that question I just asked can be perceived but what I'm trying to make a point at is, is it possible that the parking requirement minimum is not the silver bullet that we'll get, and not that it's supposed to be, but it is not the biggest barrier to development where if we had an escalating affordable percentage, mindful of the time that nothing is going on and things are pricey right now, We could actually get more housing built and affordable housing built with a lower affordability percentage number than getting rid of eliminating parking requirements.

Great question. I think I'll sort of... I would love to research more the question of a sort of scaling affordability ratio. But to your question about, hey, is eliminated parking minimums the silver bullet for cost? I think it really depends on the project itself. There are certainly projects where the cost of providing unnecessary housing is going to be passed along to the consumer and is a huge cost. But I also want to point out there are some places where that is just not the case at all. It's not contributing to cost. It's probably more like the example you were giving with your neighbor in their backyard and paving over their parking lot. They may have made that decision. to pave over the parking lot to comply with the parking minimums to avoid costs. And if we didn't have the parking minimum, they may have left the backyard as a green open space.

They just did it because they didn't want to introduce the risk of being challenged to court, or they wanted to introduce the delay of going through ZPA, et cetera. So it's very variable based on the project.

Understood. I understand that's my time. Thank you very much. I just think the, again, my fear being I can see developers just saying if we don't need to do anything, if that's our only variance, then I will just build as of right. There's no parking requirement. We get back to the issue I explained beforehand, and we actually have less housing built because they'll just go as of right to have no variances and move forward as fast as they can. My time is up. Thank you very much, Jeff.

Thank you so much and I know a number of these questions would be really would have interesting answers from the next panel as well so Henry-Santana, you are next. And I just want to announce we have been joined by Councilor Julie Mejia. She's been here for a while, as well as now Council President Ruce-Louis Jehn. So we're going to go to Councilor Santana, who's a co-sponsor of this docket.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, thank you to the administration for being here. I keep hearing some of my colleagues repeating about how families are deciding to leave because of Not being able to find parking. And I'm not going to say that's not true. But what I will say is that renters and residents and families are deciding to leave the city of Boston because of how unaffordable Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The number one factor that families are leaving is because of lack of parking. I just won't buy that. You know, I think, Deputy Chief, you talked about in some neighborhoods right now, we currently have, you know, no requirement parking minimums.

Can you speak more to Those neighborhoods and the pros and cons, both pros and cons that we're seeing in those neighborhoods because of the elimination of Park and Minimums, or maybe it's you, Mr. Fitzgerald.

Sure. I mean, I think the good examples are both East Boston and Charlestown, where kind of the examples that Councilor Fitzgerald brought up of those kind of small projects, whether it's three or four units, Where we've eliminated the minimums for kind of smaller projects under six units or under three units where it's very difficult to you know both do that size of project and on that type of lot where the only solution really would be to like pave the whole backyard and the whole and then that has obviously negative open space you know resiliency you know impacts as well so I think Those are good examples of taking kind of more surgical approaches to like saying no minimums for these small projects. There is a bit of this harder thing to solve for that the Council of Fitzgerald is bringing up about those kind of medium-sized projects that are below a large project. and just to clarify, I think everyone knows this, but like large project review, anything over 50,000 square feet, that's when our maximums kick in and there are no minimum parking requirements do not kick in and are not applicable.

So those are kind of covered well, I think, by the max parking ratios A very scientific approach to a parcel by parcel mobility score that says, yeah, you can get by with this amount of parking. But it's really those kind of lower than large project, but kind of higher than six, eight units that are the hardest things to solve for, I would say.

I would just want to add that it's often been said in some of our lower density housing districts that you can pick three things. There are three things you can only pick two, housing, Open space with maybe trees in the backyard and parking. It's very hard sometimes to accommodate all three and our current zoning code of parking minimums creates an incentive for the answer to be parking and housing when some might want open space.

That's really good information. Deputy Chief, I think in one of your previous responses, you mentioned or you restated the administration's position where I don't think you're looking to do a and many more.

First and foremost, this is obviously a conversation that a lot of people feel very passionately about, and we feel one of our core principles is doing deep engagement in our neighborhoods as we change zoning. So it's a little bit harder to do at the citywide level, but the council is embarking on that now, so we're watching that very closely. We wrote our squares of streets districts several years ago. We've been going through a process of mapping those. in our transit accessible corridors. So as we go to map those currently in Hyde Park and in Alston-Brighton, we're having the conversation about the impacts of eliminating parking minimums. At the same time, we've also started a neighborhood housing rezoning effort where we're looking at optimizing our zoning code for residential development. Not as a way of greatly increasing density, but rather as a way of avoiding variances and enabling homeowners to make repairs to their homes.

And in that conversation, we've also been talking about the impacts of parking minimums. That's our current approach. We plan to continue that, but we're also watching the Council's work here closely.

Awesome. And one final question here. I heard one of my colleagues, I believe it was Councilor Fitzgerald, mentioned about developers and potentially being able to take advantage of eliminating parking minimums. Let's say that we do eliminate parking minimums. Is there anything that we can put in place? And I think you referenced it earlier in one of the responses, but we would love for you to reiterate it, of things that we can put in place to avoid developers taking advantage of such things.

Yeah, I mean, I invite my colleagues to also answer this one as well. But this is a place where writing good zoning matters, right? So one of the challenges we have in a lot of Boston's neighborhoods is that the housing stock itself actually predates the zoning. So the zoning came in later and was very sort of like, and not proportional to the housing stock that exists today. So a lot of, for example, a lot of the typologies are setbacks and stepbacks presume that the home is in the middle of the lot, but it often isn't and it often is on the side so you can have a driveway along the side. So there are ways to write zoning where it would be Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Writing good zoning, I think, is ultimately the answer to this question that thinks about the built form of our housing stock and the

Design of our neighborhoods so that what is getting built in our neighborhoods complies with that shape and form.

I'll just add there's more surgical things we can do because a lot of our zoning in our neighborhoods was basically written 40, 50 years ago when our networks were different. Things like the Orange Line didn't exist. And so we can certainly make design improvements so that you could create parking that's more efficient to get the parking you might need. So there's those. I would also argue that some of these old neighborhood articles were done with ratios that are one to two parking spots per unit, which are, I would argue, are way above kind of current needs. So there could be more surgical approaches, like you could lower a minimum so you still have that protection So that developers aren't doing zero, but maybe they're doing enough to meet the needs of that project. So you could lower the minimums. I would argue we should lower in some of these older zoning articles where the ratios are as high as two per unit. At least lower those to one or below. And so there's certain surgical things we could do to kind of Thank you.

I really appreciate that information.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know I went over. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Santana. And now we're going to go to Councilor Coletta Zapata and then to Councilor Mejia. You have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. District 1 City Council, I'm very proud of the fact that we're always a vanguard on some of the city's most persistent issues. And so sitting here representing East Boston and Charlestown, this is what I really wanted to highlight, which is that you don't have to take a hammer you can really take a scalpel to your point deputy director where We were very intentional about, even in the various sub-districts, how to rewrite the zoning code that fits the needs and the nuances of the neighborhoods blocked by Santana took my question about some of the challenges and highlights based on what we did in East Boston and Charlestown. I'm more interested, not concerned, about Charlestown where in East Boston we have had developers already come to the Zoning Board of Appeals and ask for variances to the parking minimum.

I think that that's already been established and something that I've gone on record and talked about and been concerned about. But for Charlestown, where we remove the off-street parking minimums for structures with six or fewer housing units, how is that gone? Anyone anecdotally anything that you'd like to say about that or anything that you've seen where developers have tried to take advantage of that and come back to the Zoning Board of Appeals with variances?

My perspective and Jim feel free to offer yours is That has really functioned well as a historic preservation change because we were creating an incentive to avoid the Zoning Board of Appeal by tearing down existing housing stock and or paving over backyards. And they were just, in general, it was not the built form we wanted to see. It was not the housing stock we wanted to see. So we've seen less. We haven't seen those proposals. We haven't seen them tear down the house, put a new house in with a garage. or pay for the backyard. So I would say that's a positive change. Jim, do you want to add to that?

Yeah, I think for those really small scale, especially with our ADU zoning too, you could have a project that could comply with ADU zoning, but then when they go to do their project, The existing units that are adding the ADU too will also get flagged for parking violations as well. So it's working against, I think, some of our desires for the ADU approach as well.

We're also limited in space in East Boston, and it is very difficult to be able to do all of these things all at once. And so I think that's where, at least from my district, with limited space, and it has a lot of density, I think a lot of people are moving to my district. Parking is an issue, right, but they're not as concerned about the lack of parking because if you move to East Boston, you know, for example, that you're living next to an airport, so you're not necessarily going to complain about the airport noise, you know what I mean? So if you're coming to live in East Boston and the North End and in Charlestown, you're going to understand that If you are bringing a car, it's going to be very difficult for you to park. I'm actively thinking about that now where I have a baby on the way and my husband and I don't have a car because we love taking public transit and we are children of the T as Councilor Fitzgerald had mentioned. It is something that we are actively considering. So these are the realities that I understand that families and folks are working through.

But at the same time, you are storing your private vehicle on a public space. and if you're moving to the city you do have to understand everything that comes with that and the difficulty in finding parking is just one factor. In going back to Plan East Boston, we had talked about the fact that there was a study that was done, and I'm trying to figure out whether or not this is MAPC or through Plan East Boston, through the neighborhood needs analysis, We identified that there was an oversupply and a mismatch with actual demand. Was that East Boston specific or is that something that you have citywide?

I think that's MAPC.

Yeah, if it's the perfect fit parking, which is called, that was an MAPC kind of region-wide study, included looking at the city specifically as well as far as parking that's built and actual utilization rates.

When was that study done? 2019, I think, at this point. Do you know if they have another study on the way, or will we understand if there's another?

They will be here. They are here right now. And I actually have some of these numbers. You were right. East Boston is one of the most... You know, charged in terms of parking. But overall, the study that they did, it's 69% of average parking utilization, like in the city of Boston. So there are definitely he's going to explain like sort of more how they did this but um but basically we are building parking that's not being used and that is an important part of this conversation yeah thank you for that clarification chair and I do look forward to hearing from MAPC on that I think being data driven

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If there's anything that is moved forward as it relates to an ordinance or any piece of legislation, that it takes into consideration the ample amount of work that's been done already in both East Boston and Charlestown. Thank you.

Thank you so much, and I'm sorry, I didn't know Councilor Worrell came back in, so Councilor Worrell, you're next, and then Councilor Mejia, and then Councilor Louijeune.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for All the great questions and thank you to the panel for being here. My office and myself we attend around 40 plus neighborhood meetings a month and a lot of the conversations in my district is around development. And one of the greatest needs when it comes to development, residents are talking about parking. And it's a balance, right? The developer has that conversation about affordability, height, but then also the constituents and the residents do take in consideration what does that mean in terms of parking. The other thing that I want to just highlight and note is that Every district is completely different. There's a lot of amenities in some districts. and different amenities in other districts. We just had a conversation on pharmacies closing.

Some of our districts are pharmacy deserts, food deserts, and even transportation deserts. So the reliance on the car is and many more. Thank you. especially in the district that I represent which is District 4. I also grew up in a house just from lived experience you know mom and dad both work two jobs day and night and I could not see them doing that on the bus and I know that's still the reality for many families in this district and some of those families are are single parent families. So I'm just here to advocate for more parking. It is something that I hear constantly from my residents. The one size fits all. It doesn't sound like the administration is moving that way.

applaud the prescriptive approach and I'm hoping that we not only take the mobility but the amenities into consideration when we're talking about parking requirements. Thank you.

Oh, thank you. OK. Now we're going to go to Councilor Mejia. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. And I want to thank Councilor Worrell. Usually, I You assume the role that I normally take on this council is that's to provide the alternate voices that oftentimes don't end up in this chamber because they're working and juggling to make their ends meet. So I really do appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective. And I also want to thank Councilor Fitzgerald for pushing back because you know at the end of the day our job is to bring the voices of our constituents into this chamber whether we agree with them or not but our job is to maintain a neutral and an independent voice on this council so that When we are fighting, we're fighting on behalf of the people who put us in these seats. So sometimes it's a little bit awkward to do that, but sometimes that's what we get paid to do. So let's do that.

So I do want to just for the record note that for me, this conversation, I think it's important to peel back a little bit about the layers of privilege that sometimes we don't talk about. that I want to just name that it's really important for us to be mindful of the fact that we want to build and provide more affordable housing for low-income communities. That's my number one priority. And there is a perception that when it comes to transportation and advocacy and all of this Usually the people who are advocating fiercely are not the ones who are low income and juggling to make their ends meet. They're the ones who have three kids that go to three different schools and have to get their kids to school and to work. in order to live in this city.

And so that tension is real when we're talking about this particular conversation. And I just want to make sure that we are not losing sight of that as we're grounding ourselves in the voices of all folks who may not be here right now. So I want to name that as just grounding us in the reality of this. So this is where the tension is. I do support removing the parking limit because I worry that the NIMBYs, not in my backyard folks, may use this as a tool to prevent undesirables from moving into their neighborhoods, right? So I just want to make sure that for me, that is the only reason why I'm here on behalf of the, that's the voice that I'm here to fight for. No one else. I'm going to be really honest with you.

I don't care about anybody else but the people who can't afford to live in this city. Those are the people who I'm advocating on behalf of right now. So that said, I'm curious about how do you envision this rolling out in a way that centers equity? and that when you're making these decisions, we're looking at the low income individuals, not those who want to live here in the city of Boston because it's easy for them to get in and out of where they need to go.

That's a great question, Councillor. I think it would start by applauding the council's efforts several years ago to eliminate parking minnows for affordable housing. I think that has produced the guaranteed result that those types of developments are not going to be challenged on the NIMBY or bigoted grounds that you're referring to. So that's great. And we're in a good position there. And as we've pointed out several times here, I think we're in a generally good position when it comes to large scale Arctic lady projects where Parking minimums do not apply. So the crux of this conversation is lower scale development.

But wait, before you go there. So when we're talking about these large scale projects, I want to know the breakdown, if you have any. in terms of affordable units in these large scale projects. 90% of the units are affordable, 5%. I want to know specifics when we're talking about who We're waving these.

So I was actually speaking to all development in that case. And so this has been the case in our committee for, I don't know exactly how long, but I think for a good long while, where if you are building over 50,000 square feet in Boston, You are no longer subject to the parking minimums because you're going to go through a robust community process and an evaluative process of the BPA, including Jim and his team's transportation analysis.

But wait, that process does not include Any mandates to ensuring that the units are affordable? No, they do. Absolutely.

Inclusionary zoning requires 20% of all.

But can we go a little bit higher than that?

We're not currently considering going higher than that.

So I think that for me, This is the way we do things in this chamber these days. Everything is going to happen really quickly and fast, and tomorrow we're going to be voting on this.

No, no.

No, we're not?

Oh, that's what I heard because I've been getting a lot of lobbying. No, no, there's no zoning amendment that is actually before the council. This is a hearing order. I do hope that next year we will take on a zoning amendment just for my own personal... Thank you for that clarification.

That gives us an opportunity to further evaluate this proposal and give us an opportunity to Thank you. Thank you. I yield the time that I don't have left.

Thank you so much, Councilor Mejia. Next, we're going to go to Council President Russi-Louisien. You have the floor in five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to everyone for being here for this really important conversation. I fundamentally believe in people over profit and in people over parking. And I think that requires us to lean into this conversation. I think it was you, Devin, who just mentioned The bold work of this council five years ago in passing Loosening the requirement for affordable housing development. I think part of the struggles with this conversation and in general the density conversation around housing is that you have to find ways and mechanisms and success stories to prove to people that the creation of housing even when it is not affordable housing will lead to the availability of more affordable housing because Triple Deckers that are currently being taken out by

Students whose parents can afford to pay $4,500 a month in rent that a person or a regular family can't afford, that that then creates more availability of affordable housing. I think we have to be clearer and better with that data and information if it exists. I think the community engagement around this conversation is incredibly important. because I know, because I'm still learning, I've only been here four years, but people will very quickly turn this into an elimination of parking. That's what this is doing. So I think that the community engagement around this conversation to bring people along is incredibly is a necessary part of this work. Because I think I heard other district colleagues talk about how projects were stalled in their neighborhoods for this very reason.

I don't often trust our ability to do community engagement in the robust, honest way where it doesn't become subject to Political capture. And I think that happens very often. It's very easy to knee jerk. People say, oh, well, what will happen to all of my parking? Instead of bringing them through why as a policy matter, we believe that this is what's best for working class residents. We believe this is what's best to bring people back to the city of Boston because it will lead to the creation of more housing. And I also think that there probably should be like, New language, right? Like I was struggling with what to say about the affordable housing because I too am looking for new language to talk about what this would look like and what this would be instead of elimination of parking minimums.

Legalizing apartment buildings.

How do we speak about it and bring it to life in the affirmative? And maybe not for you because I'm not sure that this is a city so much championing this, but for those championing this, I think this is important. Can you talk to, I know we've had examples here and I was not here but I was listening, Cambridge. Are there examples around the country of seeing the elimination of these parking minimums? Seeing the creation of more affordable housing as a result. Or a corollary, a related question, is there data to show how people do and don't move, like how the choices that people are making as a result of the elimination of these minimums? Is it leading to an exodus of people or is it instead bringing more people into the city? Is there data to support or show What's happening in that respect?

So I might defer that question to the next panel, who I think have some experts on it who can speak to in a lot of detail. But the city does in our parking maximums report Footnoted quite a bit of research that has supported the affordability impacts of restricting The overall amount of parking and the incentives that we've created to maximize traded transit use. So I can share that with you. And to your first question, I think you're right that we should Board of Trustees Meeting. Reducing unnecessary costs for housing creation. That's been well covered in this conversation.

We're going to need something a little snappier than that.

You guys are the great politicians and branders, but I'll tell you what the problems are. Cost, risk of delay, and introducing legal risk. and then honestly poorly designed neighborhoods. Paving over backyards, losing trees, losing green open space, those are the And we've seen that. We see that happening. Absolutely. There is absolutely true that because we have parking minimums, and developers would prefer to not go to the ZBA so they want to comply with the rules that we have. They do something they otherwise wouldn't want to do, which is pave over the backyard, cut down a tree, and introduce a whole lot of asphalt that is just not a necessary use.

Yeah, just to cite something that our planners have been looking into related to that point. I said earlier, a third of all ZBA cases directly reference parking. Our planners are digging into that a little bit and what they're finding is a lot more cases that don't involve parking are because Proponents are choosing to prioritize the parking violation over an open space or a lot coverage violation, something like that.

Or an additional unit.

Right, so essentially they choose to abide by the parking minimum, but they are going to the ZBA to get relief from other Thank you, Council President.

Oh, sorry, go ahead, Jim.

I was going to add to Councilor's question about other locations that have enacted minimums a couple of years ago or so. There is some research, I don't have it in front of me, that kind of says the results of that. How did that impact the ability to deliver housing, deliver affordable housing? So that's something that we could provide perhaps at the next hearing, some more information.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council President. Yeah, and I think the term that I've been using is eliminating costly parking mandates because essentially we're mandating parking and it has a cost. I do want to relieve this panel and thank you because I know we have a second panel. And while I do that and the second panel comes forward, I do want to read a statement from Austin City Councilmember Zoe Quadri who we heard from at the Boston City Council last year with the help of Abundant Housing Massachusetts. Thank you for a chance to share Austin's experience with eliminating parking mandates. I'm grateful to Councilor Durkan and Councilor Santana for taking on this important work. and I appreciate the thoughtful conversation happening in Boston. Removing parking minimums has been one of Austin's most impactful zoning reforms since 2023. It has allowed more flexible and affordable housing, supported small and mid-sized projects, and given property owners the ability to design based on the community needs.

Nearly all projects in Austin still include parking, but is now driven by demand and good planning rather than uniform, arbitrary requirements. While eliminating parking minimums has helped us create a more walkable, sustainable, accessible city while keeping choice and context at the center, it is even more unsuccessful with proper management of a parking ecosystem. Our parking management districts and high demand areas, coupled with appropriately priced on-street parking, ensure residents, visitors, and delivery workers have space when they need it. Our City Council continues to improve upon this. I am encouraged to see Boston exploring this policy and asking the same questions we faced in Austin. The potential benefits of housing supply, mobility, and long-term planning are significant. Thank you again for inviting me to share my perspective. I look forward to seeing how this conversation supports Boston's efforts to create a more vibrant and welcoming city. Respectfully, Zoe Quadri, Austin City Councilmember, District 9. And I'll just say that Austin right now is undertaking a highway project.

They're actually expanding their highway, and they do not have public transit. Take with that what you will. So I'll let our, from left to right, I want each member of the panel to introduce themselves. And then I know Abundant Housing Massachusetts has a couple of sides they're going to share. which are all on all of our desks. So with that, you're first. Yes, thank you.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Eric Robinson. I'm a 25 year resident of Dorchester. I spent two years on the Zoning Board of Appeals as the architect. A couple of years ago, I own a approximately 40-person architectural firm here in the city of Boston. I have pages of notes, but actually listening to this hearing for the last hour and a half has been my 20 years in a little bit of a condensed version. Councilor Weber mentioned the Pine Street Inn project. That was my project. I live that effort. I live on a street in Dorchester that has three deckers, single families, multi-families, and they're all existing contexts. We have no parking. I walk from around the block as Lynch, Flynn was talking about.

And so I'm living this as an architect in the city with my clients who are developers. I do affordable housing development and market rate development. So this issue of how to bring more housing to the city is at the forefront. It's our living and how to bring the right developments to our neighborhoods. We started in Dorchester 20 years ago because we were tired of hearing how crappy development was coming to my neighborhood. And we said we can do better. We wanted to get out into the communities and listen Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and that really starts with listening and so I've been in every one of your districts with my projects and I've seen every one of them on both sides of and hearing about it and there's no doubt that parking

takes up. A disproportionate amount of the conversations we're having in the communities. It's not a real issue. We understand it's a real issue. But these developments have a lot of demands put on them. The expectation of higher design goals The affordability aspect, which is real, sustainability aspects, community benefits, and then the infrastructure improvements. And so there's a lot of conversations here that these developments are having to address. And I think this conversation has been amazing. And I think I am for finding the right balance on every project. And that is what we did when I was on the zoning board. We considered each project on its merits and some projects had the right merits in the right place and those were granted the relief they needed and they did the process and some don't. And so I think that is a process that does

We work with the city through the Article 80 large and small project on all of our projects The conversation is being had. And I think we do find our developers, while they might have a bad name because they want to make money, they also want to make projects that are viable. And they need to deliver projects that will be embraced by the communities and serve the communities that they're going into, especially in the neighborhoods. So this has been a really insightful conversation. I look forward to the questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairwoman Durkan, Councilors, for holding this hearing and the opportunity to speak. I'm Jesse Canson Beninov. I'm the Executive Director of Abundant Housing Massachusetts. I know there's a lot of, it's been some great conversation. with the previous panel and there are folks who are more experts on this parking issue on this panel now than I am who will speak about things like the state of parking reform across the nation and research into the impacts of Excessive Parking throughout Greater Boston. So I'm going to focus my remarks briefly on support for parking reform among Boston residents, city of Boston residents. As I've said to this body before, talked about before, earlier this year my organization commissioned the Mass Inc. Polling Group to conduct a survey of residents, Boston residents, gauging their attitudes and a variety of housing related issues.

The survey was conducted this past summer and reached 550 residents across the city in both English and Spanish. One key finding from the survey, and this is in the packet, the slides, I guess they're gonna go up on the screen.

Yeah, they're up there now.

They're up on the screen. So this is a little detail about the survey. If we go to the next slide, One key finding from the survey was the broad level of support for the topic we are discussing today, increasing parking flexibility. As you see on the top there, over 70% of Boston residents across the city support this initiative eliminating costly parking mandates and allowing more flexibility for paved parking in new developments. And as you can see in these charts, this support extends across neighborhoods. Unfortunately, because of the sample size, we couldn't necessarily identify individual neighborhoods. So I do some grouping, although I will point out Fitzgerald, that Dorchester does stand alone with over 67% of residents polled supporting this type of initiative within Dorchester. Broad levels of support for neighborhoods across the city.

and then if you go to the next slide I want to point out support across different demographic groups you can see that across the income spectrum including low-income residents broad support whether you're regardless of your income group, whether you rent, you own, you are family with children or without children, and then across age spectrum. Broad support for increasing the flexibility of Parking within new developments in the city. I believe that the testimony you've already heard today here and then those that I think you will receive in written comments over the next few days will continue to demonstrate the broad support for this reasonable reform across demographic groups and across neighborhoods. I do also want to point out that in 2023, the city of Boston hired a national zoning expert, Sarah Bronin, to study the city's zoning code.

Her research identified that the city's zoning code was severely broken. We've talked about this before. It's longer than even New York City or Los Angeles' zoning code, let alone comparable cities. It's bloated, inefficient, and inequitable are the words to use it to identify over 200 instances of different parking, residential and commercial parking minimums across the city and within her detailed set of recommendations, Bronin identified the elimination of parking minimums as the number one thing that the city of Boston should do to create an effective, equitable, Zoning Code that facilitates the creation of more affordable homes in all neighborhoods of this city. So before I end and pass it on to my colleagues, I'd like to reiterate a few key points that myself and others on this panel will make.

Increasing parking flexibility is a proven reform that will unlock more homes for people of all income levels including for affordable homes and not just prioritize parking for vehicle or rather Housing for Vehicles. It will better utilize the land that we have in the city and will promote sustainable development, helping us achieve our shared climate goals. And most importantly, there is broad support for this from city residents in all corners of Boston. Thank you.

Thank you.

Members of the Boston City Council, my name is Henry Grabar. I'm a resident of Cambridge. I'm a journalist and the author of Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World which was published in 2023 by Penguin Press. In addition to nearly a decade of reporting on this issue in cities around the country, I've had the pleasure of talking to local elected officials in various cities and states Many American communities are grappling with the same challenge How do you grow the housing supply to make sure that everyone who wants to live here can live here without compromising the city's character? And I submit to you and perhaps this is already evident to you from the meetings you've been in in your neighborhoods, that what sometimes gets called nimbyism is at its core often a concern about traffic and parking.

And in this respect, parking minimums may seem like an obvious response because they forced the private sector to build enough garages to defray this public parking anxiety. However, the evidence shows that this approach has many drawbacks. First, because all of those required off street garages serve to encourage and subsidize car ownership, thereby creating the very traffic that they are supposed to help alleviate. And second, because they create a number of costly externalities. These garages, these requirements impede the formation of new businesses, They raise the cost of new housing. They eliminate the viability of small infill homes such as accessory dwelling units. They waste concrete and asphalt and energy on parking spots that will never be used and inject uncertainty into the development process. They force renters and buyers to pay for parking at their homes whether they drive or own a car or not.

and they make it illegal to build all of the buildings that are all around you today in the city of Boston that give this city its architectural character. None of those would be permitted under the city's current parking requirements. Why does Boston have these laws in the first place? Because the city has an inability to properly price and manage oversubscribed street parking. And in listening to this hearing today, I hear many concerns about whether families will have access to the parking spot in front of their houses, low-income workers having access to street parking. People with disabilities also often require street parking and I would suggest that The City of Boston could prioritize those people and their need for street parking through a targeted policy that addresses what actually seems to be the issue here, which is parking on the street, rather than with this rather blunt tool

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Councillors, and thank you for this opportunity to testify. My name is Adi Nochar, and I'm a senior transportation planner at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, or MAPC. We're the regional urban planning agency for Greater Boston, serving 101 cities and towns from the North Shore, to the South Shore down out to Metro West. And I manage our perfect fit parking work, which for the past decade has used overnight parking counts to analyze off street parking at multifamily housing sites across the region. So I thank the chair for referencing our work in her opening statement. and the Councilor from East Boston for some of the questions as well. We don't have any plans to conduct a follow-up study in Boston at this time, but we have done subsequent phases of the perfect fit parking work in other communities which I'll speak to in a moment and we have had other communities and municipalities approach us expressing interest in doing the same so I believe our perfect fit parking work has really helped Catalyze this parking reform conversation across the region and I'll speak to that in a little bit more detail. The chair mentioned our flagship on phase two study.

I have the executive summary here and I can provide that to counselors after this hearing is concluded. Our flagship study included Nearly 200 multifamily housing developments in the inner core, 14 municipalities, including the city of Boston. There were 55 multifamily sites from the city of Boston that were included in that study representing 15 neighborhoods, different numbers of developments. Just a couple in East Boston, there were 12 in Dorchester, I can provide the neighborhood level data for anyone who's interested after the fact. But we found on average in the city of Boston that just over 3 in 10 parking spaces at these sites sat vacant overnight when most people are home. We also found that these sites provided an average parking supply of .78 spaces per housing unit, but average parking demand was only .53 spaces per occupied housing unit. So we're seeing a very clear mismatch between parking supply and parking demand.

And in every single Boston neighborhood for which we have data, parking supply outstripped parking demand and parking was overbuilt and underutilized. And we've conducted subsequent phases of this perfect fit parking research in the North Shore with the West Metro Home Consortium west of Boston, and with the City of Salem and we found these exact same trends time and time again. Parking is overbuilt and underutilized and parking supply outstrips parking demand. And we've done statistical modeling and analysis of this parking data and it further finds that parking supply is the primary driver of parking demand. In other words, the more parking you build, the more cars you will attract. And this contributes to increased traffic congestion, it undermines public transit usage, It increases air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in our communities. We also know that building excess parking reduces the land area available for housing and other community uses while increasing the cost of the housing units that can be built.

And these costs are often passed on to renters and homeowners. and as such our recent work with the West Metro Home Consortium in the City of Salem has specifically investigated parking requirements as a barrier to housing affordability and housing production. Our perfect fit parking findings lead us to several parking reform recommendations, including reducing or removing parking minimums. And as mentioned earlier, we've seen cities and towns all over Greater Boston use our perfect fit work as inspiration to take this on. Most recently, we were proud to work with the City of Salem to help their council recently pass an ordinance to remove minimum parking requirements for a new development, and I believe you might be hearing from Salem Mayor Dominic Pangallo about that in a little bit here as we move to public testimony. And I do want to recognize that you all as the Boston City Council have already taken leadership on this issue as mentioned earlier. You have taken leadership on parking reform by unanimously in 2021 voting to remove minimum parking requirements for affordable housing developments.

We strongly now encourage the council to take the next step and do the same for all new development across the city. So I thank you again for the time and the opportunity and again can provide are perfect fit executive summary and more detailed breakdowns of Boston neighborhood data and building data for anyone who's interested. So I look forward to the conversation and thanks again.

Thank you so much. And we also have on Zoom, we have Daniel Harages. So I want to give him a chance to do an opening statement. He's from Parking Reform Network.

Yes, thank you, Councilmember Durkan and members. My name is Daniel Haragas. I'm the policy director of the Parking Reform Network. We work internationally to educate the public about parking policy and accelerate parking reform. So I want to provide a bit of that sort of zoomed out perspective. Why is there a parking reform movement? Well, because the prevailing approach guiding The adoption of minimum parking requirements in zoning codes virtually everywhere was this very mid-20th century approach that parking should be abundant, convenient, and free. And the result was that we tended to mandate oversupply, as you already heard about from the perfect fit parking study from the MNPC. This was a blunt tool designed to kind of solve one problem without consideration of trade-offs. What scholars and policymakers have come to is that there is never such a thing as free parking. That bit of asphalt or concrete always has a cost, and the question is just, who pays it?

So in a residential context, every parking space costs money to build and maintain, and that translates directly into rent, often to the tune of $200 and up. in monthly rent, depending on what that construction cost was. And parking, just by virtue of its space constraints, crowds out housing that could otherwise exist. It tends to reduce the unit count in new projects or render projects that might otherwise be built completely infeasible. In a city like Boston, space is at a premium, and this includes space on your public streets where you might park a car. It also includes space to live, space for the stuff of urban life. And those trade-offs need to be resolved in many different context-specific ways. And so this blunt force tool of parking minimums gets in the way of actually considering the trade-off between parking and other uses of space. Places all over the place are figuring this out. If I can share a slide here.

We track and support these reforms all over the country. More than 100 US cities have fully eliminated off-street parking mandates citywide, and thousands more have gotten part of the way there. And what you see on this map is that this is extremely politically and geographically diverse. This includes small towns. Major cities like most of New York City, the vast majority of Chicago, all of San Francisco, just this year Denver and Baltimore, but also places like Raleigh and Durham and Austin, Texas, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Places where plenty of people still own cars and drive cars and park those cars. This is not ideological. It is not an anti-car movement. This is a pragmatic reform that we're seeing adopted many, many places for a wide variety of pragmatic reasons, but very often for the reason of housing affordability.

Because we've seen this reform taken up so many places, we don't have to get stuck on a what if of, well, what could go wrong with this? What happens when somebody doesn't build enough parking? What happens when residents can't find someplace to park their car? The what-ifs are often very salient. I think we have a status quo bias because the housing that isn't built is invisible. It doesn't exist. But the what-ifs are really easy to conceive of. But I can speak a bit to the what-if concern because there is a strong track record of these reforms in other major cities, and we do have data as to what happens. And the first thing that happens is nothing. You wake up the day after you vote to remove your parking minimums. It's the same city. No parking has been eliminated. No one has been precluded from providing parking. But over time, you see the market adjust to the newfound flexibility and you see people take advantage of a variety of options that didn't exist before. And crucially, that change is incremental over time.

It is not sudden or disruptive. And so I'll pull my slides back up here just to show a chart. This is from a study of every building permit issued for residential buildings in Minneapolis over a 12-year period. and it's the number of parking spots per unit for these new projects. And so what you can see is a lot of parking is still being built in Minneapolis, but that bell curve has shifted a little bit. It's shifted over to the left to the point where that average ratio is now about 70% of what it was. And you've got that left tail of the curve. You've got a sizable minority, definitely a minority of new projects that are being built with very little or no parking. These are contexts like, you know, a new eight unit or 12 unit building going up very near transit. where the builder knows that they're going to attract residents who don't have cars or who don't care that much about parking for their car, who would rather have the affordable rent in a neighborhood with lots of amenities.

So you're creating a broader range of outcomes, a broader range of options, and you're allowing the market to right-size itself to actual parking demand. And so in Seattle and Buffalo as well, what we see is that the vast majority of new residential buildings still include parking. Even in the absence of any requirement that they do so. But what we also see is that the majority of new homes permitted after reforms in those cities are in buildings that were illegal under the prior code. were creating options that didn't exist in the marketplace. And those are options for people to find an affordable home in a place they want to be. The last thing I would say, this comes from a modeling exercise done in Colorado by Eco Northwest and Mapcraft, where they looked parcel by parcel across the state at Development Feasibility. And what they found was parking reform was the most impactful of six different land use policies that they tested, more so certainly than

Legalizing accessory dwelling units by itself or certain transit-oriented development incentives by itself, that simply creating parking flexibility made 71% more units market feasible in this model than were otherwise the case. So, and I think developers will tell you this is a hugely impactful policy when it comes to the ability to actually build homes that pencil out in a community that needs them. Um, Happy to answer more questions if there's Q&A. It's not a silver bullet. This doesn't magically solve the constraints on housing production or the constraints on space in Boston. It doesn't magically address every concern about where people who need a car are going to park that car. But it creates the ability to flexibly solve problems in an actually rational case by case basis. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Daniel. So I'm going to let my colleagues ask a couple of questions. I'm going to start out. and I just was the metropolitan area Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Just wanted to ask the question, under our current parking policies and mandates, are we encouraging people to bring a car to Boston?

I would say yes, the more parking that is required or that is built, the more cars that will be attracted.

Okay.

And then for Parking Reform Network, from a national perspective, what outcomes have cities seen in eliminating parking minimums? And I just, I want to get a little bit deeper on that question about Silver Bullet. and but also why this matters because I think people who hear this isn't a silver bullet might say okay then why would I take The political heat for eliminating parking minimums in my neighborhood if some people in my neighborhood are going to be mad about it. I do think I want to thank Abundant Housing Massachusetts for presenting that data. It's clear to me that These things are more popular than we give them credit for, these reforms, and I also want to thank the over 65 people who have sent me, at the beginning of this hearing, there's probably more now, in support of these reforms. I have over 65 emails and I know a lot of my colleagues have gotten those emails as well. So just wanted to ask that question for Parking Reform Network. If it's not a silver bullet, why should we do it?

because it is an impactful reform. And the key is that the results are, like with many things, they're gradual. It's about creating possibilities. It's not about, upturning what the city looks like overnight or in a couple months or a year. But this is impactful. It does result in housing being built. Minneapolis and Austin are two examples of cities that have seen Very strong housing production and flat or even decreasing rents coinciding with that in the wake of major parking reforms. To say that it's not a silver bullet, that's simply that nothing is, and to emphasize that the change is gradual, because what this does is it allows the market to adjust. There is still a market that is determining how much parking is demanded in new developments. Developers are responding to the demand as they understand it. They're responding to what they know makes an apartment attractive to tenants.

They're also responding to their lenders who are going to push back and say, are you actually going to build this building with no parking? How does that affect the feasibility of renting out these units? So that's just to emphasize that the mandate in the zoning code is not directly dictating how much parking gets built or how much parking exists in the city. Right now, what it's doing is applying a blunt force tool to say, You can't make these decisions in a flexible context sensitive way because you have to meet this one size fits all quota. I hope that answer is helpful.

And I think like what I heard today is that it's adding months and months and costs to the process. So even if you got to a variance, you had to spend money to get there. You had to spend money to build less parking, which We're having this conversation about development in all rooms that all of us are in. And we're often talking about how expensive it is for developers. to build housing and how things are not penciling. And today it does feel like the politics of this issue are complicated. Henry, I was hoping that you would speak to, I know your work documents how parking has reshaped American cities, and I'm just curious for you, in all of your research and everything that you've documented, I have noticed, I mean I have gotten over 60 emails today, many from folks that I don't know their name. And in politics we have a bias for names that we know.

People that voted for us, people that put up signs for us, people that are involved in civic organizations, people that are, you know, and I think today I got 60 plus emails from people that I didn't know their name. They're not regulars at the city council. They don't often come in support of initiatives that we're doing. So I guess I'm curious with the work that you've done, could you maybe add some flavor to potentially politics distrust of names we don't know and and essentially maybe how complicated the politics of this particular issue are given that We've seen, especially from Parking Reform Network's data that they just showed, this is not a progressive issue. It's not a conservative issue. This is both a deregulation and it's parking reform. So it hits at many different levels. and it's a business conversation as well.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. One of the things that you sometimes hear said is that parking is the third rail in cities, meaning that politicians are reluctant to touch any issue that relates to parking. But of course, the third rail is where the power is. And I think that you've seen in this discussion so far that parking is something that affects not only the design of buildings, the affordability of housing, the way people get around, and so on, but also something as simple as how much open space there is in the city of Boston. With respect to I think the question of why do this policy It's very hard to envision what might happen in a city of Boston where there were no parking requirements because you cannot see the ideas that do not come to fruition. Somebody tries to start a cafe in their neighborhood and they're thwarted because of parking requirements, it's impossible for us to look out at the city and see that dream that did not come to pass.

It's not possible to look out and see the infill housing that wasn't built on the vacant lot in Dorchester, and so on. So it is difficult to measure in advance exactly what would happen, although I agree with Daniel's assessment that the change is gradual, most parking will still be built, and you're introducing and many more. But at the same time, we have to remember that who is least likely to show up at community meetings, who is least likely to have their influence felt at the City Council? It's low-income people. It's people of color. and those people statistically are less likely to own cars. And so I think while we're very sensitive of course to the needs of working people whose needs are not met by the public transportation system in the city of Boston who can't afford

To live in a walkable neighborhood we have to remember that statistically those people are less likely to own cars and more likely to benefit from the possibility of more housing that has that flexibility of maybe not having parking included and those costs built in.

Okay, and my last question is for Eric. I know you're an architect that's done a lot of work in District 8, but you've done a lot of work everywhere. Can you speak to the impact of parking minimums on the cost of a project and to the extent in which they function as a veto point or a barrier in your experience and any examples where their removal would have changed projects outcomes?

Sure. So we're dealing with projects of all shapes, sizes, and scale in the city, all over the neighborhoods, and I think The conversation is very interesting with our development clients. They have to look at a myriad of factors in terms of what shapes what they want to propose on a project. They do market research on size of units. Number of units. What's the mix? How is that going to work? How much amenity are they putting in? And they do the same for parking. They know what their parking needs are for the projects that they are going to put into the project to be sustainable, as Daniel mentioned, Lenders and things are looking at these products. So our developers are actually very smart when it comes to understanding what the context of their projects are. So through the lens of cost, there was some discussion earlier of $50,000 per spot and how that works. It varies, right? Every project is different.

The one piece about parking in the City of Boston and design is we don't have very many square sites left in this city. Almost all of them are not a shape of any sort and size, and parking requires a rectilinear approach to laying out The parking and it just doesn't work in a lot of our projects fundamentally and so what what happens is those projects then just don't become developable or feasible for our clients and they just don't even consider or look at it because they know they have to address the parking situation somehow. So I think building in some flexibility, and again, as I mentioned before, Each project really does need to be weighed on its merits. And I think that is just one of the pieces that goes into these projects consideration. And what are the community benefits of these projects? And is parking? really the biggest concern.

It's not in every neighborhood and we are working in all the neighborhoods and so we know that and we hear that. I think a lot of the nimbyism I'll say comes from this lack of understanding and communication and being clear about Why we're doing things and what's the reasoning behind it. The community actually, in my opinion, has been very engaged and thoughtful, and they care about their neighborhoods. And they just want to understand what's the ramifications on me. And we understand that. and being able to communicate the pressures of these projects through a dialogue in the community is really a way to make sure that people are being heard and understand why the decisions are being made. So it's a cost to a project, so there's no doubt, but it's just one of the costs.

Thank you. And I know I've gone over, so I want to give my colleagues a chance to ask their questions. Councilor Pepén, I tried to mirror sort of what you all know about so that people would sort of understand exactly. But I do want to thank Abundant Housing Massachusetts for their leadership. I do think oftentimes in politics there's no one saying attaboy when you do something difficult and so advocacy organizations are really important to talking about you know, basically preparing what makes sense. And I know that Henry's actually speaking at the plan, you know, doing a talk tomorrow with the planning department. So it's very interesting just the conversations that we are having in our city and we need to bring those to the city council and If over 100 cities have found a way to do something, we should be looking at it. I think that the reduction in

The reduction in demands of developers building residential housing is important in a time when we don't see projects being built in the city of Boston. So, Councilor Pepén, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. and thank you to this slate of panelists for being here. Thank you for the work that you do also in the community. I really enjoy following the work that many of you do. Obviously, I'm a big follower of Abundant Housing Massachusetts. I've been able to partner up with you on multiple occasions. I know Councilor Durkan has brought up the fact that the councilors from Austin, Texas, they were here as well. We were able to learn of what they have done in regards to getting rid of parking minimums in Austin. And we also just got a report, I think, A couple days ago of their housing report and how they're doing it. It's promising. It just shows that what they're doing works. But Eric, I think you've phrased it perfectly. Where you mentioned that residents are engaged. They do care about this conversation, but it's about how is it going to impact them. And I think that's a lot sometimes for

Anyone to take in. And even for myself as a counselor that consider myself to be in tune with zoning and transportation and parking, it took me a while to really learn the concept of what it means to potentially remove parking minimums from a city or a district, wherever we're looking at. So my question to you all is, and I think this was actually the previous panel, why were parking minimums implemented in the first place?

That's a great question and I think that the answer is ultimately to manage the perceived chaos and inability to control The street parking situation and the idea being that an incremental zoning change that would require new buildings to include their own parking would over time gradually alleviate the pressure on the curb, which is everybody's first choice for a parking space.

Okay. And for the cities that have implemented the no parking minimums, have they looked at different approaches to come at any concerns about lack of parking? I know that there's municipalities that are picking They're building parking garages, so they're going vertical because obviously space is not an opportunity anymore. And I think that's very similar sentiment here in the city of Boston. What are other places doing in order to combat this?

If the purpose of the parking minimums is to some extent to address the concern that residents have that there will be spillover that challenges their perceived right to that public space at the curb, then the city can do something about that. Somerville, for example, has a big building around Union Square that was permitted to be built with no parking. And I believe that residents of that building are not entitled to get street parking permits in the city. So there are ways you could address The perceived challenge for the street parking spaces without again using this tool that we know adds on so many costs to the cost of housing.

Okay. This is very First one to me just because actually we just we went through something like this in Marazanel where we did get rid of parking minimums in the square. But we know what we have. We have we do have a municipal parking lot. We do have a commuter rail station right down the street. And I believe that Rosnell is one of the neighborhoods where parking, you have the data, Councilor Durkan, Once the certain time of the day comes around, there is a lot of parking available, on-street parking, so we knew what we were able to accomplish there. So I think if we are able to look at the different parts of the city, what we have to work with, I think this could be very successful. Because at the end of the day, what our priority should be on the Boston City Council is to make it easier to build more housing. And my understanding, after a lot of research and conversations with people, is that the parking minimum requirements have made it more difficult. Obviously, I feel like we're all saying this.

It's not the silver bullet, but it is an obstacle in terms of building more. I know that this is very much part of the conversation. I hope that We bring it back up in the new legislative cycle so that it just doesn't die here, so that we can just continue this. And I think to Councilor Mejia's point earlier, this is a topic where there's people going to agree on it, we're going to disagree on it, It's going to be a very divisive subject because parking is a very, that third rail conversation. But it has a lot of power. And I love that. I'm going to use that myself moving forward. So thank you for saying that. But just want to say thank you for being here. I look forward to be part of the conversation moving forward. And Councilor Durkan, thank you for holding the space for this.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilor Pepén. Next, we're going to hear from the Vice Chair, Councilor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Jesse, first of all, is the one that get the solo shout out in your introduction. I appreciate it. I just wanted to ask, If you look at the strongly supports in your graph, what neighborhood has the lowest amount of strongly support? I'm going to guess it's Dorchester. There you go. I just want to bother that. So is it fair to say that I would have a good pulse on my constituency?

Well, I'm going to say somewhat support and strongly support are on a scale of, and I'm happy to provide the full details of our poll. It's on our website. It's on a scale that included...

Thanks, Jesse. I just wanted to point that out. I'm sure otherwise, as you guys might No, when I was up there asking questions to the prior panel, I'm sure you're licking your chops and saying, oh, I can't wait to answer these. So I just put all those same questions back on you and just let me have it. Whatever you guys think. Because I'm sure you had some thoughts while I was asking up there. So any response to any of my previous questions? I'm happy to repeat them if folks need them repeated.

I can't claim to remember all of them.

Let's go to the one about eliminating parking requirements versus lowering the affordability percentage, which gets more affordable units built?

I would say I don't know the answer to that. I think just as this isn't a silver bullet, We need every tool on the table and I think conversations around affordability levels that are either helping or hindering housing production in the city is a valid conversation in addition to the conversation around the impact of costly parking mandates on bringing down affordability. So I think it all needs to be on the table.

No, fair enough. I just want to say too, I think to that, that it just seems that around affordability, everyone says we have to increase and minimum we have to go down. And it seems like that is the just sort of That's the answer. You cannot be on the other side of either of those, but I think the question is worth asking. Does lowering the affordability percentage on new projects actually help get more housing built and more affordable housing built? and why are we not paying attention to that as much as we're paying attention to making sure we're eliminating parking minimums?

So to that point, Councillor, I certainly don't claim to be a housing expert. Transportation is more my... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Parking Reduction or Elimination to Increased Affordable Housing. And so they had a little bit of a tiered system. My understanding is I think for larger projects, 20 units or above, they had a 10% inclusionary housing mandate For smaller projects, I think in that three to 20 range, or maybe it was six to 20, it was a smaller requirement of 8%. And we did do some financial analysis for the city that found that if they did, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

There are lots of ways we could think about tying parking reductions more explicitly to affordable housing and more housing production. That was certainly our experience in the city of Salem.

Thank you. And as for developers taking advantage of this, have you guys thought that through? And is there any risks? I think as an architect, sir, as you're going through and proposing this, Do you guys see any real risk? Some of the ones that I maybe described earlier, just trying to imagine it in my own personal life.

Well, currently, as the zoning code is written, I don't think in 20 years, I don't think I've done as of right project in the city of Boston. So every single project appears in front of the zoning board. That's a little bit hyperbolic, but that's true. And so if it's a project of any sort, I added a dormer to my third floor. I had to go through zoning. You know, there's other ways to regulate those kind of projects that go through that maybe are smaller in their process. And I think, you know, The zoning, the way that the process works obviously is not great. We can all probably attest to the sort of the way The city is built on a variance process, which is very, very long, takes a long time, takes a lot of sort of process. And the BPDA is obviously working through rezoning aspects of the city to kind of adhere to that.

The challenges are on these smaller projects, there's no doubt, where they're smaller developers, maybe they're doing it once or it's their family parcel that they're just trying to do a better job and they're like, How do I get through all this regulation? And they might be slipping through and doing things that, you know, eh, I'm gonna talk to my neighbor and we're gonna be like, okay, that's okay, we're gonna pave the backyard and move on. And so there are instances of that, there's no question about it. I think it's a question on balance on how many of those are happening and how much in terms of the broader city context is something that we need to take into consideration. And for myself as a designer in my firm, We're trying to do the right thing through our projects. So we will explain that to the clients. They can't just do that just to do it. So we're responsible as well. Not just sort of the checks and balances of the zoning code.

I would also add, I mean, remember that these developers do have to rent or sell the units, the homes that they're building. and if they're building a project far from transit without any parking they're going to have a hard time doing that. I think he even mentioned having to appeal to They're lenders who put requirements on them for parking that are often in excess of what is required, particularly in municipalities without parking minimums. I would think it's unlikely that a developer would do that. We've heard statistics today from cities with much worse public transit access than Boston, such as Minneapolis and Austin, which have eliminated parking minimums and are still seeing around 70% of parking built compared to what was built previously. So I don't see that happening.

I think from the city's perspective, if a developer builds a building and they find they cannot rent or sell those units because they haven't provided enough parking spaces, then that's a public policy win for the city because those units end up being even more affordable.

Sure. I know my time is up. I think I'd lastly just say that I know most stuff going through zoning now, when it goes up to the planning department, has to be, they ask for less parking and less parking. I just I guess I guess again just wonder who makes that that final call and and I think we're operating under that already yeah and we're not seeing housing get built and most most projects are being called on for less and less parking by the planning department and almost at zero parking on some projects. And they're still having a tough time getting the ground. So just something worth taking note of. Guys, thank you so much for your time.

Eric, can you speak to the difference between the Article 80 stuff and what we're talking about here? Because obviously none of this is subject, we're not talking about parking minimums that are subject to Article 80. Large project, about 50,000 square feet.

Yeah. Right, because that is typically is arbitrated by the Article 80 process of the BPDA is determining the parking maximums or minimums through that process. It is definitely in the smaller projects that we're seeing these are and ones that are being built in our neighborhoods, right? And where someone's taking a parcel that had a historic single family, they tear it down and try to and so on. And we see that we don't do a lot of that work because frankly it just It's not good for the neighborhood and the community. And so that part needs to be arbitrated through the process. I think there are ways to do that and I think there are ways to consider these projects in terms of what their proximity to and so there are mobility scores and things like that that happen on the larger projects. I do think they could come through on smaller projects as well

right size some of those parking needs and you know a lot of them a lot of these parcels are just not big enough to even handle parking and realistically and and and that's that's a troubling kind of piece of it because they're trying to do something do the right thing but they just can't fulfill the requirements so that balance

Thank you so much. And I think the one thing that Councilor Fitzgerald and I really share is that 20% of zero is zero. So it's like we do, and that's partly why I think we are having this conversation because there are some places that the City Council could actually petition the Zoning Commission. We have the ability to petition the Zoning Commission on this particular issue that is backed by data and is backed by other areas that have done this. So I do want to call to the attention of my colleagues. We have received a letter, which I misplaced, okay, I'll have to read this later. Okay, we're gonna go first to, oh sorry, here it is. We've received a letter from NIOP Massachusetts. Dear Chair Durkan and members of the Boston City Council,

Nyup, Massachusetts, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association appreciates the opportunity to provide comments in support of eliminating parking minimums in the city of Boston. NIOP represents the interest of more than 1,800 members involved in development, ownership, management, financing of offices, lab, industrial, mixed use, multifamily, retail, and industrial space in Massachusetts. Boston is facing a housing crisis spurred by underproduction with no end in sight. In 2025, the first half of the year showed that over 1,600 units of new housing permitted, a 44% decline in the same period in 2021. The existing shortage of housing at all levels is a significant threat to the economic growth in Massachusetts. It is critical for the health of the city of Boston to advance policies that incentivize rather than hinder the production of new housing at all affordability levels. NIOP continues to urge the council to take action to lower costs and address regulatory barriers to reducing housing. NIOP is pleased that the council is exploring amendments to the zoning code to remove parking minimums

and parking requirements for all new residential development. NIOP believes that this is an important next step following the 2021 amendment, which eliminated off-street parking minimums for affordable housing developments. In Greater Boston, the cost to build structured parking is a minimum of $50,000 per space. Over the last several years, cities across Massachusetts, including Cambridge and Somerville, moved parking mandates from their zoning codes. As a result, there is a growing body of real-world research demonstrating the positive impacts of removing these requirements. Initial evidence suggests two key conclusions. One, that removing parking mandates has a significant and positive impact on the number of homes built as seen in an analysis of Buffalo, New York, Seattle, Washington. Two, evidence from Chicago and Minneapolis shows that parking is still being provided. However, the amount of built parking matches the unique needs for parking at the site rather than compliance with one-size-fits-all mandates.

Parking minimums are archaic, expensive, an aspect of the Boston Zoning Code. Recognizing that developers should be given the flexibility to determine what amount of parking is best for the project and the neighborhood, NIOP strongly believes that such minimums should be eliminated. Thank you for your consideration of our comments. Please contact me or NIOP's Vice President of Policy and Affairs, Anastasia, if you have any questions or any additional information is needed. Sincerely, Tamara Small, Executive Director of NIOP. Sorry, I'm trying to break up my letters with our council colleagues. So next we'll go to Councilor Coletta Zapata. You have five minutes.

Thank you so much. Again, I'm very lucky in my district. We've already kind of hashed this out. So I really have no real skin in the game. Of course, with the North End, that's the last piece. Although the North End is the North End, we all know. How small those streets are and everybody that's moving there understands that finding parking is going to be very difficult. So I'm asking these questions with that lens where I'm just trying to be, I'm just trying to get as much information as possible and my line of questioning will I think one of Council Fitzgerald's questions about like does this actually translate to housing and do you have any data on that? But then also I think we keep talking about housing, housing, housing, we're going to get more units on. online, but does it actually contribute to the overall affordability of new development? Like if I'm a developer, because in East Boston, we've seen new development. We've been, I would say, the epicenter of gentrification in this city. Where our rents have gone up 224% because we've built many, many units.

They've come online. And they've all been luxury units. And that was pre-20% IDP. That 20% IDP piece was so key. But we weren't building to the inclusion of people that live there. So a lot of my immigrant neighbors and chosen family have ultimately been displaced. And so we're talking about putting units online and having the cost savings Go to building units does it actually translate yes to housing but then also does it translate to better affordability for people and do you have any data anywhere that showcases that reducing parking minimums increases the affordability in any given city?

Parking Reform Network is also on if they were interested in taking this one.

I can speak to that. I mean, if you're going to talk about the affordability of new units going online across the city, there are many, many factors determining that. Parking itself comes at a direct cost. I mean, the cost to construct, you've heard testimony that it can vary widely project by project. But it does directly translate into the monthly rent in the sense that that construction loan from the developer has to be paid off. The general rule of thumb is that $10,000 in construction costs translates to $100 in monthly rent. The reality of how that plays out is that parking is setting the threshold for projects that are viable at all in the market. If you can't get the rents that you would need in order to finance the project, Under the given parking requirement, you may just not propose that project. You may not build that project.

So I think there's kind of a simple, like, you know, direct way in which, yeah, you are removing the cost of the parking that isn't built because they now have the option to build less of it. New construction is still expensive. It is expensive for a lot of reasons, from the cost of land to materials to labor. And so parking reform does not upend all of the other pieces of that equation. You know, I recognize that I'm here in my capacity as a parking expert. Don't want to step too far outside of that to talk about housing broadly, but certainly there is A robust body of research to the effect that new market rate construction does alleviate rent burden overall. in existing housing in the community largely through migration chains, which is a term of art for the fact that it absorbs demand for higher-priced housing in the community and that that in turn frees up comparatively lower-priced housing.

in the city, which does not resolve concerns, local concerns about gentrification, about neighborhood change. There's a large scope of conversations that I understand that you are having and need to continue to have in Boston. about those issues. Parking is one piece of the puzzle. But parking itself is costly to build, and that cost is borne ultimately by the resident of that housing unit. I don't know to what extent that answers your question. Happy to talk more about it.

Yeah, and I appreciate that answer. I think I saw a figure. I think to Councillor Durkan's point earlier where it's like $50,000 per space to build it and raising the housing cost, this is from Plan East Boston, by $1,700 per year for renters. you know that in of itself that one unit maybe that is the cost savings but if I'm a developer that's going to my if if I don't have to pay 50k that's going to my developer fee that's not necessarily being translated to The cost savings of a rental unit, they're going to get the market rate anyway for these luxury units in East Boston. So that's where I'm kind of like challenging you in that way. And please understand that this is not me You're trying to be a villain in someone's story. We are having a policy discussion here, so this is where I'm approaching this.

If I can jump in, Councillor, I mean, I think it is true that there has been a significant proportion of I think the reality is that in recent years, probably the past decade or so, or probably more, the rate of producing new homes in the city, across the city, has been lower than or disproportionate to our population and job growth. So the reality is costs are going up. in New Development. New Development is expensive because we are pitting working class folks in direct competition with wealthier folks for the very limited supply of Homes that we have. And in that competition, it is the wealthier folks who are winning bidding up the cost of housing. And that is in a very constrained system with a lot of other regulations on it, whether parking

or a very extended Article 80 process or development plans that need to be negotiated over years with community groups that are all driving up the cost of housing and make it more expensive. This is one piece of that, this is breaking down one piece of it and I'm hopeful that it will help produce more homes, not just in East Boston but in places like West Roxbury, for instance. I will point out also that 80% of the homes in this city are unsubsidized. In other words, 80% of the homes in Boston are market rate. 80% of the residents or that means the vast majority of residents in the city live in market rate housing. We know that the vast majority of residents in the city can't actually afford Market Rate Housing. So, costly parking mandates like this one that add 10, 50, or

in some cases, certainly in your district with structure and ground parking, even more cost per unit to build the housing, that is making housing more expensive for the vast majority of residents in the city again. 80% of homes in this city wouldn't be eligible to be built under the elimination of parking minimums for affordable housing. So we're trying to make it more affordable for everyone.

Thank you. And, Chair, I have one thing just to call out. I'll be very quick, though. Sometimes we have multiple crises at once. So in East Boston, I was in Charlestown in the North End. in the CFROG, so Article 85 Coastal Flood Zone Overlay District. And that means that we have to build up anyway. So ground floor retail is actually a long-term strategy here where you're supposed to repurpose and relocate the ground floor use. And one of the suggestions because of that, because it's uninhabitable, is that you create parking there. And so just calling out the fact that, one, if you want to propose this as a zoning amendment, One article of the zoning code may be in conflict with the other, and just to consider that as we're moving forward and looking at this holistically, where it may be in direct competition with one another.

Yeah, no, thank you. And I definitely know we're going to have a lot more experts talking about this in the new year. And I just want to point to a Pew study that was between 2023 and 2024. which shows that in the 11 largest areas that added at least 10% housing stock during 2017 to 2023, basically rents in older, less expensive apartments decreased where housing was built where housing where if homes increased by more than 10 percent in the highest impact areas and I'm going to share this with everyone but essentially It really is, you know, the more housing we build, the less it costs. And so if eliminating parking minimums or eliminating costly mandates of parking helps build

Even a hundred units in a neighborhood that will have an impact and it will have an impact on the lowest the lowest and I often speak to I live in naturally occurring affordable housing on the north slope of Beacon Hill that is only possible because the seaport was built. There is a direct economic relationship between housing being built in other high-income areas, protecting lower income areas. Not low-income areas, but protecting naturally-occurring affordable housing. This is not a phenomena that This Pew study is one of the first times that they studied something over a ton of years in 11 metropolitan areas. So it's definitely something we should be looking at. Unfortunately, Boston wasn't one of the 11 areas.

maybe because we didn't build enough housing that year so unfortunately and so anything that we can do but interestingly enough some of the places they picked have eliminated parking minimums maybe speaking to the fact that there is a causal effect to if we can build 10% and I know I'm not a scientist or an economist so I don't sound super you know I'm not knowledgeable when I'm talking about this specific study, but I think I have read enough that has led me to believe that we have Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What gives? How can we build housing? How could we lower the cost of housing? So next, we're going to go to Councilor Mejia and then the Council President.

We have a lot of public testimony, so I want to make sure we have time for that. Councilor Mejia? Thank you, Chair.

And I also just want to note that I have a commitment in Dorchester, and you know how traffic is. It's going to take me an hour and a half just to get back there. Eric, did you have one of my students at your architect firm?

Yes.

I knew you looked familiar.

I did.

Thank you for that.

Of course. We do a ton of outreach. Thank you.

Thank you. That is what it looks like to be rooted in community. Yes. So I do remember that. Sorry, I didn't remember that until you started talking.

Thank you for remembering that.

Yeah. It's important to acknowledge that good work. and I will, some of my questions, and I'm so glad, the Cambridge guy. Eric? Henry. Henry, you're not on my list. Why is your name not on my list? Oh, it's in the back. Hendry, I love the way you think because you're getting at the root. You're thinking about ways for us to addressed the real problem. And I really think that you are onto something here in regards to providing parking for those folks, the targeted populations that we hear, folks who are disabled, Folks, just the demographics that I think that if we could be targeted then we could address that concern and I think that this conversation needs to think about how we all feel like we've won.

The problem that I see in this moment is that we do a lot of this and everybody's pitting each other against one another and nobody wins that way, right? So the hope is that we can have this conversation in a way that everyone feels like they got something out of this, right? And so I think that that solution focus framework that you are providing is important. And I didn't realize that most politicians run away from parking issues because I filed a hearing order in my naivete time where I wanted to do income adjusted parking. that if you were low income, if you got a parking ticket, that we would be able to base your parking ticket based on your income. And everybody thought I was crazy. I thought it was worth considering because it was worth considering. But I say that I don't think this conversation is as political and as, at least for me, I don't think so. I think that this is an opportunity for us to get at what is the right thing to do in this moment. I'm going to go back to my original

Thank you. Thank you. and then we find ourselves displaced. So I'd love to talk a little bit about what that looks like within this framework to ensure that we're not met with some unintended cause of questions here.

I want to say a word about affordability, and I hope it will address your question, but also Council Member Coletta Zapata's previous question, which is that it's not just about the cost savings that occur in the development process when you don't have to build the parking. It's also because the buildings that then go on the market without parking are cheaper to rent or buy in than the buildings that have parking. Parking is a nice amenity to have for many people. Think of it as a menu in the city of Boston. What's on the menu? For 80 years, Housing without parking, new housing without parking has not been on the menu and what this ordinance would propose would be putting that option back in place and an example of that in real life is in Los Angeles where

In 2016, the state passed a law that made it easier to build accessory dwelling units without parking spaces, and the number of ADU permits in Los Angeles jumped from 254 in 2016 to 5,429 in 2018. Now an accessory dwelling unit, living in the garage, living in a little cottage with no parking space, that's not everybody's first choice. It's often a naturally occurring form of affordable housing. But it's the type of thing that is impossible to build if you keep requiring parking with every single unit.

Yeah, thank you for that. And I can't believe my time is almost up. Oh, you're typing? You want to say something too? Okay.

Some mic issues here. Oh, there we go. Councilor, just to address your points about affordability. Another recommendation that comes out of our perfect fit parking research is unbundling parking from housing costs. People oftentimes at these multifamily developments might be paying for parking that they don't use or don't need. So how can we think about ways to unbundle That parking from the housing cost. So if you don't need a parking space, you don't pay for it. If you do need that space, then you can pay for it. So that's one policy recommendation. That's not about eliminating or reducing minimums, but that helps advance the broader parking reform conversation and affordability. and the other piece I'll add is that you know I think we've heard throughout this hearing that you know there are folks who might still have legitimate parking needs and so how can we make sure that parking for those who need it is accessible to folks. And I believe the city of Cambridge, as I understand it, for residents of affordable housing, they do make that parking available.

In some instances might need to pay for that parking, but they can pay for it at a lower rate than folks who might live in market rate units do. And so, you know, Councilor Azim could certainly speak to that a bit more. We heard from him earlier, but that is another The solution that folks could think about is making sure that for folks who do pay for that park, you know, unbundling the parking from the housing costs, but then insofar as folks in affordable units who might still need that parking, they could potentially pay for it at a lower rate than the market rate folks.

Yeah, thank you. One more thing. Thank you. Thank you. Two more things, actually. One is I was part of the body then in 2021. I had the courage to, I just wanted a note for the record so that, for me, I'm no stranger to this conversation. I have very specific opinions about things, but just know that I've been there and done that and will continue to be in support. And then the second piece is that I think as we continue to navigate these conversations, it's really important for us always see the whole picture and I think what happens is that we tend to be lopsided in our approach to kind of how we approach these sort of conversations because The tension that exists, it feels very toxic. in the city and I think that it's really important for us to have that level of emotional intelligence as we're continuing these conversations and the affordability factor is going to be for me the number one reason why I always say

Yes, let's go all the way in because I know who I'm here to fight for. And I think that centering it in that way for me is what gives me comfort in saying this is my why. And the last thing that I'll say is that when people park on When people take two parking spaces, when they could share, I'm the one that believes your little note. You could have pushed yourself a little bit further and created space for, That's equitable, right? So, you know, it is annoying when, I know for me as a single mom, when I had my daughter in a car seat and I couldn't find a place to park and I had a whole bunch of groceries, and I didn't have a second set of hands to help me do all of that. Those are the sort of scenarios that I think about when I have these conversations is that making sure that we're not creating further hardship for folks who may not have the luxury of being able to have support at home. So just keeping all of that within the center of this. Thank you for the indulgence.

Thank you so much, Councilor Mejia. And I have one more letter, and then we're going to go to Councilor President Roussy-Louisien. Dear Chair Durkan and members of the City Council, on behalf of Fenway Forward, formerly Fenway CDC, I offer our comments regarding docket 0161, order for a hearing to explore amending the Boston Zoning Code to remove parking minimum requirements for new development. Boston faces a housing affordability crisis and outdated parking minimums stand in the way of creating more homes. Fenway Forward strongly supports removing these requirements to prioritize housing over parking. Fenway Forward is a 52-year-old nonprofit affordable housing organization with over 1,000 members. We own and operate 550 homes for more than 800 people of affordable housing and engage residents in efforts to improve life in our community We work to preserve the Fenway as a vibrant and diverse neighborhood by developing affordable housing, providing programs to enrich lives and strengthen our community voice.

In 2022, the council voted to amend the zoning code to eliminate off-street parking minimums for affordable housing developments. Fenway Ford was a strong advocate for this change, which allowed the precious state and municipal funds to be directed towards building more affordable housing units instead of expensive parking. In a dense and costly neighborhood like the Fenway, waiving parking minimums makes our affordable housing project more financially feasible. Fenway forwards 112 Queensbury Project, a 24 unit, 100% affordable project, being developed at 4,300 square feet, underutilized parcel is a prime example of the enormous impact of the 2022 amendment. After three years of successful policy implementation, Fenway Forward supports expanding the removal of parking minimums to all residential development. In recent years, developers in the Fenway have prioritized lab construction over housing. It is our hope that with reasonable policy changes like this one we can incentivize the development of new homes. Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

We look forward to this critical discussion and the ongoing work together to identify ways to make Boston more affordable for all of its residents. Sincerely, Cassie White, Fenway Forward. President, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank this panel for your insights. I want to start with Actually, with Daniel, I thought that your presentation of the data was really spot on, and I want to thank you for the bell curves. Over time, I think it was a 15-year spread. I think that those sorts of visualizations are really helpful and in a world where data trumps politics could be really helpful in sort of moving this conversation forward because it shows that perking was still being built, maybe 30% decrease I think overall over the time that we've seen, but that it was still happening. And that there was more housing construction happening as a result. to the extent that we're able to use data to tell visualizations and graphs to tell stories, I think that is one that a version of one that I think we need to

If there are community conversations that are going to happen around this, which absolutely should, that that's the sort of data and information that we need to share with members of community. But you did say something that led me with further questions. You brought it to a point, and I think my colleagues have asked about this, and so if it's repetitive, I apologize. But if you could talk a little bit more in the specific examples that you gave was Minneapolis. What is actually happening in the Minneapolis housing market as a result of that? And I know it's not one factor, but Are there things that you were able to say demonstrably happened? I think one of the facts was housing being built in areas where there wasn't, bless you, housing happening before, but what are the other things that we're able to draw from? conclude as a result of that change.

Yes, thank you for the question. Drawing cause and effect conclusions is tricky, and I want to make sure that I'm not selling you a bill of goods here. What we can say most conclusively is we can point to projects that are being built in cities that have done this parking reform that would not have been allowed under the prior code. And that's pretty cut and dry is this building exists and this building would not have met the parking ratio that used to exist. You can point to dozens of those examples in Minneapolis, and that's kind of incorporated in the data that I showed, which is based on looking at all the building permits across the city, and also in the statistics from Buffalo and Seattle. Causally tying that to specific trends in the housing market. I mean, it's one variable among many. I did mention the fact that both Minneapolis and Austin have received national attention for

Falling Rents, you know, in recent years, specifically in the like 2022, 2022 period. Austin, Texas is another city where... where they saw a downturn in prevailing rents across the market. Causally tying that to specific land use reforms is tricky and the effect of Legalizing different kinds of supply is something that is going to trickle in over time as developers figure out what the market will bear and take advantage of it. And so I'm wary of telling you, yes, this is the thing that we did that caused rents to fall. What I can say very robustly is that in the cities that eliminate their residential parking mandates, We see the new options taken advantage of. We see buildings go up, usually not with zero parking, but with less parking, with more flexibility around making it work on a particular site. So we see that taken advantage of.

And the other thing that I think we can say causally in broad strokes is, as I mentioned before, in response to another line of questioning, There is a robust body of data that shows that new market rate housing supply does lead to the opening up of comparatively affordable housing within the same regional housing market by absorbing some of the demand Even if that demand is relatively at the high end because new construction is costly to build and tends to be not the most affordable housing on the market. It still has that effect down the chain of affordability. And some of the things that I've referenced in terms of data, I'm happy to share resources that I'm aware of or the PRN has shared through Councilmember Durkan's office by whatever request.

Thank you. I want to get two more things in there. Well, I think probably a recommendation to Jesse and to your team. Just recommendations about like visualizations that help cities that have legalized that have You know what I'm trying to say. Yeah, the affirmative wording that we can use and trends that we've seen in their market. Just like a simple graph, checkmark, X, checkmark, this happened, this didn't happen. That would be helpful, I think, both for this body and for the community. And I also think, I understand it, but I think that we need to do a better job when speaking about these issues. What do you mean by the market responds accordingly? That's not human speak for our constituents and for residents. They don't know what that means. And I think you've got to explain to people what you mean.

especially when people are going to be saying that this means elimination of parking so like not everyone understands what that means. I was like I had to ask myself do I understand what they're saying and I was like okay yeah I understand what they're saying but not everyone's going to understand that and then Lastly, I did have a targeted question to Henry, because you made the point that people of color and low-income folks are more likely to benefit from not having those type of parks. Parking requirements built in. And I'd love for you to tease that out a bit more, like what you mean by that and what supports that.

What I was saying specifically was that Those communities have lower rates of car ownership and therefore are less likely to benefit from a legal system that requires a parking space be built into every single unit.

Yeah. You know the prospect of upward mobility? People believe that even though they don't own a car, they see themselves as car owners. So I was actually hoping that this was relying on some sort of other data about like it opens up some form of housing for them in a way that we can demonstrably show rather than because they don't own cars this is more likely to benefit them because I don't necessarily think that people look at it that way if that makes sense.

Can I somewhat address that?

And I know I threw a lot out there.

Yeah, and some of your feedback around I don't know that I would ever say that the market responds accordingly, because I know that that's not a compelling message in a lot of places. I think what is worth saying, and I think perhaps hasn't been part of the conversation as explicitly today as it should is that we know that we have in Boston an extreme shortage of homes and that shortage of homes is driving the cutthroat competition that we see every day, whether in the rental market or the ownership market. And we know who that's impacting most negatively, that is Lower income people. It is communities of color often. It is people who take care of our children, who clean the We are becoming a city where working folks simply cannot afford to live here because we have not built

The homes that are affordable and accessible to them. There are a lot of reasons why we haven't built those homes. Some of them like I said a few minutes ago has to do Well, it has to do with the relatively exclusionary zoning schemes we have. There are still some neighborhoods where you can only build and many more. and we know that as a result of a variety of these exclusionary zoning elements including these costly parking mandates we have quickly become a city that is most affordable and accessible to people on the highest end of the spectrum we need to make

The changes under our zoning system that unlock the potential to build the variety of types of homes that people of all income levels, all walks of life need. ADUs, backyard cottages, basement cottages. We need more family size rental units. We need starter homes, smaller starter homes that either are affordable to people trying to gain home ownership and many more. Things like excessive parking mandates make that difficult if not impossible to do. And by eliminating these exclusionary elements that drive up the cost of housing, We'll be able to build more opportunity. We'll be able to build family size units and starter homes. We'll give more people access to home ownership, to build wealth.

We know that there is a direct impact on all of that. and many more. Many cities around the country have done that. I know we like to be leaders in Boston. We're the first or the oldest in so many things. We're not a leader in parking reform. and I think we have an opportunity to learn from folks like Austin, Texas, where if you ask them in Austin, they've done a variety of zoning reforms, they say that Parking reform has been the most impactful in accelerating the production of new homes across the city. And as a result, average rents have fallen 22% in the city of Austin.

And they don't have a metro.

And they don't have a metro. In Minneapolis, which just has two pretty inefficient light rail lines, we saw at the height of the pandemic, of the height of interest rates in the pandemic, that it was parking reform that led to the creation of new housing. Minneapolis got a lot of attention Thank you. Thank you. They don't call them three-decker, but prior to that, three-decker reform in Minneapolis, that was the most impactful in terms of accelerating production. And a Federal Reserve study showed that at the height of interest rates during the pandemic, Minneapolis had lower inflation because of housing production and lower costs of housing.

So we have ample evidence here, but ultimately we need to pick away at these Thank you.

And I just want to thank you, Council President, and I just want to thank this panel. And it looks like, Henry, I might be looking for You know, 12 copies of your book. So I also want to recommend Jerusalem Demsus on the housing crisis. Well, I like it because it's short, gets to the point. It's something that really has driven me to appreciate what zoning reform can do to make a city more equitable and less exclusionary. So before we end this panel, I just, Aditya, was hoping that you would speak to utilization across the neighborhoods in the 2019 study, because it seems to me that there had potentially been a lack of understanding on like the actual utilization of parking in residential developments.

Sure, happy to speak to that a bit more. So as mentioned earlier, when we do our phase two study in 2019, surveyed nearly 200 multifamily sites across 14 inter-core municipalities, including City of Boston. And the sample for the City of Boston was 55 multifamily sites across 16 different neighborhoods. We didn't have, the number of sites surveyed varied across neighborhoods. We had one in Back Bay, we had 12 in Dorchester, arrange in between. We did find a utilization rate average citywide across those 55 sites of 69%, so as mentioned earlier, Three in 10 of those spaces on average across these sites were sitting vacant overnight. I do have that data table broken down by neighborhood, so I can make that available to you and all the councilors afterwards.

Okay, I will send that to my colleagues and it looks like it's just me, so I'll end this panel.

if I may for the record, I meant to mention this earlier, but perfectfitparking.mapc.org is a resource for you and all your colleagues to continue this conversation. So the reports, the data sets are all on there. Available there for anyone who wants to dig into this further, but like I said, I will make some of these tables that are Boston-specific. You won't find those online. I'll make those available to you in your college.

OK, thank you so much. And I want to acknowledge that we've also gotten over 60 pieces of written testimony, which I know were sent to my colleagues. So first, we're going to go in person. We are going to be switched between virtual and in person. Cheryl Pavlik. Cheryl Pavlik is first. Second is Liam Axton, so if you can get in line. Zach DeClercq. and Hayden Seeger. And we're going to do two minutes each. And I will have a timer, but just try to wrap up when you hear the buzzer go. Thank you. Cheryl, go ahead.

I'd written good afternoon, but I guess it's now evening. So my name's Cheryl Pavlik. I'm a 76-year-old resident of Brighton. and also a proud member of the Alston Brighton Housing Action Group affiliated with Abundant Housing Massachusetts. I'm here in strong support of the bill to remove parking minimums for residential buildings. I'm a licensed driver, but I choose not to own a car. I walk, I use public transportation, I take advantage of car sharing and short-term rentals when I need a vehicle. This allows me to live independently and actively without the enormous expense of owning and storing a private car. Yet under current policy, we are all being forced to pay for parking through housing costs. This hidden cost falls hardest on seniors, people with disabilities, and residents on fixed incomes.

Some people argue that removing parking requirements harms disabled residents, especially seniors, because we need Cars, but that assumption doesn't match reality. Many disabled seniors, depending on the nature of their disability, cannot drive at all. and those with serious mobility limitations require door-to-door transportation, not personal car ownership. What actually supports independence for disabled and aging residents are services like the MBTA Ride, desiccated shuttle buses like those provided by Age Strong, transit accessible housing, and convenient nearby short-term car rentals or shared vehicles. A small number of shared, well-located vehicles can serve many people, using far fewer parking spaces than individually owned cars sitting unused 95% of the time.

Furthermore, parking minimums force developers to spend money on garages instead of things that are really important to seniors and the disabled, like elevators, wider hallways, green space, and affordability. They lock us all into a car dependent model that does not reflect how many seniors and disabled residents actually live. Let's supply parking based on real demand, not outdated assumptions.

Thank you so much Cheryl and I just want to thank everyone who's testifying publicly and that has waited all this time. I really appreciate it. We really did try to have this earlier but because there were a number of people who had to leave the panel we had to Put it at the end. So Leah Maxson.

Hello. Hi, my name is Liam Maxon. I live at 28 Litchfield Street, and I'm a Boston resident, and I've lived in the Boston area for almost my entire life. I am incredibly thankful to live in a city that has matured before the rise of parking minimums. I live in a triple-decker myself. and a house that would not be legal were it built today because there isn't enough parking on site. Funnily enough, among all three units in the house, We only utilize, at most, two parking spaces, normally one. So that is parking that is going unused that could have been used to provide a larger house, provide more bedrooms, or provide green space in the backyard.

The process of taking housing that, like mine, is naturally low on parking and replacing it with places with excessive parking is going on in Boston today and I think that it is incredibly harmful to the city to have this have this process remove homes like mine in place of perhaps more expensive structures or structures that have lower housing because there isn't enough room to put The number of parking spaces required on a lot with the amount of housing that is currently there. To sum up, I think we should be Encouraging people to live in the housing that exists in Boston, not legislating that housing change to increase parking and increase unaffordability, increase trends. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Right on time. Okay, next, Zach DeClercq. Then we're going to hear from Hayden Seeger. We're going to switch to online for two people, Abe Menzen and Pam Beal. So go ahead.

All right, thanks so much. I hope the city can get this done. I live in Eggleston Square with my family. Many people I love have felt the ugliest brunt of our housing shortage. And I'd also like to say not all families drive. Our BPS school is 93% low income was one of the poorest schools, if not the poorest elementary school in the public school district. And most families are not arriving by car in the morning, I can promise you that, when I drop my kids off at school. Multiple neighbors on my block have had their kids leave for other states or other cities as soon as they aged out of their parents' home and never came back to Boston. They're not coming back to Boston. There's not a home for them here. It's too expensive. I would love for my kids to have the choice to stay in Boston when they eventually leave our two-bedroom. My six-year-old and to a lesser extent his little sister loves being able to ride his bike to school in Roxbury, even on a cold day like today.

and the blocks that he is most carefree is where there's fewer driveways and the streets are built for people, not for car storage. Cities across the region and across the country have moved much more boldly and with more urgency to enable housing creation through zoning reform. These zoning reforms can also be a part of easing our long term tax burden as residents, which is a hot topic right now and is not going anywhere. Lastly, I recently started a business with my neighbor offering shared access to electric cargo bikes, which is a great car replacement for some people. For many people, in my opinion, but for some, not for everyone, but for, you know, there are solutions to help us live in a less car dependent city, especially if it means a more affordable city. So I think that, you know, There's not really a bright future for Boston long term if we can't turn the table on this crisis.

And lastly, this is my first time showing up in person at a city council hearing. I do hope that The city councilors who are mostly gone do take in the written testimony just as much as spoken because it is a very hard time commitment for members of the public to make. Thanks.

Thank you so much, Zach, and thank you for waiting. Hayden Seeger, my constituent, so happy you're here.

Hello, good to see you, Councilor Durkan. Yeah, to echo that, It seems like a weird thing that people claim they listen to their constituents, but then they leave, but it's okay.

Well, you're mine, so at least I'm here.

Well, yeah, you're my councilor, so that's great. So as much as I hate the free market, it's a free market problem. I think we can agree upon that. Developers won't build a building with no parking because no one will want to live there, if that makes sense for that current neighborhood. So I think that's a pretty terrible argument to have. According to the panel up here, a third of the cases on the Zoning Board of Appeals are parking related. That seems ridiculous to me. A third of cases? That's crazy. And then just last month, I was here testifying for the ADU hearing. We learned that 99% of buildings in the city of Boston cannot be built under the current zoning regulation.

So somehow the developers are supposed to build the same buildings that are in the historic character of the neighborhood, but then not having a park yet doesn't make any sense to me. Cambridge in 2022 passed no minimum parking requirements. And currently, I don't know if you've been to Cambridge, it's currently on fire. There are zombies like rising up from the dead.

I never go to Cambridge.

Yeah. Completely destroyed. So yeah, that's just a funny thing. And then I'll end with this really. The mayor's office says that its current position is to tackle this problem neighborhood by neighborhood. which I love the mayor, I don't have a Harvard Law degree, but doesn't the current situation incentivize a broad Random parking requirement for the whole city and not neighborhood by neighborhood. So, yeah.

Thank you, Hayden. Okay, next we're hearing from Abe Menzen who's online. and then Pam Beal is on deck and then we're moving back to in-person.

Thank you, councillors. My name is Abe Menzen. I'm a principal with Samuels Associates. We're a mixed-use developer with a focus on Boston, 25 years in business here. Appreciate All of the comments and concern from all of the Councillors about the state of the city and its residents. Our comments relate to our experience building housing generally of scale, generally what you'd probably consider medium-sized or larger projects. and many more. Housing that's generally close to transit, including affordable housing, mixed income projects, and conventionally financed IDP projects. We're not a specialist in some of the smaller projects that have been discussed. That's not where our expertise lies.

Though I do have experience with projects that have gone through Article 80 that still require zoning variance due to underlying zoning. So I don't think it's a A problem that's confined solely to smaller projects. I wanna testify to encourage The continued focus on reducing and eliminating parking requirements, whether it's a one size or a more targeted approach, it's really critical. I think for reasons of housing affordability, housing production, and sustainability reasons that we right-size parking requirements and don't require overbuilding of parking. I can confirm from personal Experience that parking is one of the most significant obstacles to feasibility that we face.

We have seen steady and significant decreases in parking demand over two decades within our portfolio, including the same building, seeing a gradual trend of declining demand for parking. We monitor it very carefully. We survey the mobility patterns of our residents, including rideshare use, bikes, and trains, mass transit. Parking is a tremendous cost. We've heard the number 50,000 a unit. I can tell you that we've built parking spaces as much as 150,000 a unit in below grade. It's a huge burden to overbuild parking. It adds to the cost of the project and ultimately the rent that's required in order to Get a Project to Pencil. No matter how we've approached it, whether it's above grade, below grade, we've done puzzle parking systems with automated Trays that move cars around to try to condense parking, stackers.

No matter how you cut it, parking drives up the cost of And it's an obstacle to feasibility as well as a waste of resources and embodied carbon. to satisfy neighborhood concerns, knowing that we were going to build more than we needed and seeing a parking garage built that is frankly underutilized and unnecessary. We can't afford to do that anymore. Construction costs are up 30% since the pandemic. We have a real housing crisis and that kind of experience really chills the ability to get Projects Financed to attract financing to the city. And it's an extraordinary challenge that we're facing right now. There are many things that are beyond our control.

Parking, right-sizing parking requirements is a controllable element and it's definitely worthy of all of your focus. And I'm really happy to see the Councillors really thinking about issues that transcend this and get into just the importance of housing production in general in order to control costs. of rent in the existing housing stock. So to me, this is an opportunity to align good urban planning and housing production goals. There are no silver bullets. Tackling housing affordability requires what we call stacking nickels, adding up small contributions on all fronts. Parking is one of the biggest and many other issues that we can tackle and then one that has multiple benefits as well. Some possible guardrails that I think should be considered giving this flexibility that do exist.

Number one, projects that go through Article 80, there will be a focus on these issues within Article 80 and ensuring that developers are doing things that are context appropriate. So within Article 80, that's definitely a safeguard. and then lastly I'll just say that I have experience with trying to get projects financed that where we've pushed the envelope to build less parking more in line with where we where we see the demand And it's incredibly hard in our world to attract financing when we're building to demand, let alone building to less than demand. And it's really not foreseeable for me. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much Abe. Yeah, I let you go a little over because I think that this perspective is such an important part of this conversation. And I'm just really grateful. Thank you to Samuels and Associates for and look forward to the tree lighting tomorrow. So I'll see you there. Okay, so Pam Beal.

Good evening, and thank you, Councilor Durkan, for holding this incredibly important hearing today. My name is Pam Beale, and I'm a resident and a small business owner in the city, and I am here today to speak in favor of amending The zoning code to remove parking minimum requirements for new residential developments. As has been noted today, eliminating parking minimums does not eliminate parking. It simply gives needed flexibility to build the right amount of parking for each project and allow the market and the immediate community the opportunity to decide parking needs, which I believe is a good thing. And I look forward to participating in future conversations about this very important issue. Thank you again for making the time to hold this important meeting.

Thank you so much, Pam, and thank you for being on every IAG since, you know, before I was born.

My pleasure.

John Perry, we're back to in-person, and then Daylen Kelting, and then Timothy DiMaio, and these are all in-person. Thank you.

Hi, Madam Chair. Thank you for staying. My name is Jack Perry, and I've lived in Boston for over eight years now. And while I am now in Councilor Flynn's district, I first moved to Jamaica Plain in 2017, where I ended up renting for five years. I still vividly remember attending my first Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council zoning committee meeting in my first few years there. I had wanted to register my support for proposed residential development around the corner from my own building at the time. I learned that this wasn't the first time that the developer had pitched this project, having been rejected previously for not offering enough parking to appease the committee. among other issues. So we came back, but only after straining to cram 26 parking spots into this 14 unit development. For an apartment building that would be just a 10-minute walk from the Orange Line, a 15-minute walk to the Green Line, practically across the street from a grocery store, all in a city where 44% of renters do not own a car.

Now, I know in this case, as an Article 80 project, residential parking minimums weren't the explicit reason that Street and JP still to this day has three decaying old garages instead of 14 new units of housing. We've heard good testimony today explaining Article 80 and the differences there. Ultimately, the developer couldn't overcome the perennial neighborhood character moral panic in that case. But it was a radicalizing wake-up call for me and helped me understand how parking requirements stand out as one of the most frustratingly arbitrary and regressive barriers to new housing development in Boston. Two-thirds of Boston residents are renters and 44% of us don't own a car. Why are we forced to subsidize the cost of parking in new residential developments? We need to follow the promising examples set by Cambridge and Somerville and remove these parking minimums from the Boston Zoning Code. Cities are for people and not for cars. Thank you.

Thank you so much, and thank you again to everyone for waiting and being so patient. Dale and Kelting, we didn't even have one comment mad at me that you've waited so long, so thank you.

Thank you, Chair. So Councilor Fitzgerald asked who is here to defend parking minimums. And for two hours from about 2 to 4, I took him up on that. and I could not find a defense of parking minnows in the academic literature. As far as I could find, they were created in the 1950s under the theory that they might help street parking and they did not then and they do not today. Durkan, to your point, I think it is important how do we reframe this narrative about like, oh, instead of you're trying to get rid of parking, How do we take that energy and reframe it towards actual reforms to help street parking? The problem is real. The frustration is real.

But parking minimums, as we have seen today and exist in the literature, at least that I could find, do not actually help with that. So could we increase the cost of street parking for non-residents, try to push those people to off-street parking? or could we build more off-street parking? How do we change this narrative and look for more real solutions to street parking instead of creating an unnecessary barrier to housing development. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Timothy DiMaio Tim DiMaio I'm here to express my strong support for the elimination of parking minimums The demand to live in Boston is very high. We know that. Our universities and our economy attract bright young people from all over the world. Unfortunately, as we've heard, there's not enough housing currently for all the people who want to live here. In other words, demand is exceeding supply. When that happens in any market, prices rise, in this case, in the form of sky-high rents. Obviously, we never want to discourage people from living here. We can all agree that we want Boston to grow and thrive. What we can do is increase the supply of housing. Eliminating parking minimums is an easy way to help with that.

When we require developers to include parking, it adds tens of thousands of dollars per unit in building costs. Developers need to make a profit so they either build fewer buildings or pass these costs on to consumers in the form of higher rents. Buffalo, New York removed parking minimums citywide in 2017. Between 60 and 70% of new homes permitted after they eliminated parking minimums would have previously been illegal to build under the old rules. This is a simple, evidence-based change that costs the city nothing and enhances our ability to build the housing we desperately need. Other cities have shown it works. Boston should follow their lead. I urge the Council to pass this reform and help make our city affordable for everyone. And then I also want to address the issue of pedestrian safety because

All the talk today, I think pretty much all of it has been about this as a way to... Increase housing supply. But it's also a pedestrian safety issue. When we prioritize parking over people, we put more drivers on the roads. More drivers means more danger for pedestrians. I think we should be encouraging other forms of transportation instead, which is exactly what happens when we encourage more building free of parking.

Thank you. Nate Stell. And then I'm going to switch back to virtual. I know there are two people that just emailed me that they want to go because they can't stay on any longer. So Nate Stell, you have two minutes.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair. My name's Nate Stell, small business owner in Roslindale and a parent of a couple of BPS students who cares deeply about keeping families, especially families with children in this city. I strongly support the idea of removing parking, costly parking mandates for all residential development in Boston. And then thinking about this hearing, I was reflecting on the squares and streets process. We just wrapped up our rezoning in Roslindale Square. I was an enthusiastic supporter of that and I'm grateful for the additional flexibility that allows us for providing homes and buildings of all types and also eliminating costly parking mandates in the area. On the other hand, I can't help but notice that the area that was rezoned was just a third of a mile dot on the map, and we spent a year and a half doing that. and it was a lot of meetings, a lot of time.

And there were three other locations that had began their squares and streets process at the same time as Roslindale and not a single one of them have had their zoning approved as yet. And so it's just clear to me that this approach of hyperlocal incremental change, it's just not gonna get us anywhere. We need to take some bigger swings. We're gonna have a chance of adding the housing needed to actually slow the growth of housing costs for families. And pound for pound, removing parking mandates is probably the most impactful housing reform that the city can make in 2026. And to address the valid concern about increasing street parking demand, You know, especially in neighborhoods like East Boston, South Boston, that's legitimate. Fortunately, it's a solvable problem, and there are proven tools for managing greater demand for on-street parking. Things like... More parking meters, demand-based pricing like they've done in San Francisco, modernized resident permit parking like they've done in Portland, Oregon, a city that's the exact same size as Boston.

Better Enforcement and all these things can be done to keep curb parking available. And because we're definitely not in a building boom right now, Sorry, just one more sec. We have time to roll out these parking reforms in phases. We don't have to do it all at once. And so phase one, though, is quite simple. We just need to end these outdated arbitrary parking mandates. so that we can get to the business of building homes that families can afford in Boston.

Thank you. Thank you. Next, we're going to go to Laurie Radwin online. and then Diane Valley and then Caliga Online.

Good afternoon, or I guess it's evening now. Thank you very much for taking my... Testimony, my name is Laurie Radwin, and I too live in Roslindale. As a faculty member at UMass Boston, I was a principal researcher funded to study unequal treatment in cancer care for people of color, people with LEP, and others in protected classes. This work has made me deeply, deeply familiar with how disparities are created and perpetuated through public policy. We don't have a parking prices. We have an unequal treatment I didn't think I'd have to say this again after our rezoning it. Somehow I'm obliged to do it. This is not nuanced. A commitment to AFFH means that we follow the Mayor Wu's executive order where, quote, every city cabinet, department, agency, and office

has to collect data disaggregated by protected classes such as neighborhood to track the impact of city activities on protected classes. There is no adherence to this requirement right now in this docket. and until such an analysis is completed, you are promoting unequal treatment. And I know the residents in your neighborhoods will provide ample evidence and data and we can even do a study. There are numerous examples of many unequal treatment that have occurred. Despite in my neighborhood, I was not given the privilege of showing my slides that describe this, despite other liberties that have been given to others who have spoken.

So let me say now that a commitment to civil rights means that this docket should not move forward without a closer examination of what has happened with protected classes, and I will also say that I will give you an example until my time runs out that City of Boston initiated changes made significant disparities in the allotment of parking spaces Curbside parking spaces for people of color. They lost, and immigrants, they lost nearly three times as many to our outside parking spaces as their counterparts. On one street that is all people in protected classes lost 11 to our parking spaces, the highest number. and largest percentage on any street. And now all of their parking spaces for these businesses are five minutes only. This does not even occur anywhere else in Rosindale Square. You got it.

Next, we're going to go to Diane Valley and then Kalika.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, I can.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. It's been a long day waiting to have the community to participate. I make a recommendation the community be part of these hearings from the beginning. and not subjugated to have to wait to the very end and then be relegated to two minutes. I would like to ask that you stop saying flexibility. That is a misleading and as Ruth C. said, it's not human speak. I'd like you to stop comparing us to other cities. We're nothing like any of these other cities. We're 48 square miles and we have 14,000 people a square foot. It doesn't compare to anybody that you're comparing us to. I'd like you to stop giving the developers complete voice and I'd like you to listen to the Boston residents. Stop pretending the Boston's crisis is the parking. It is not. The crisis is the BPBA has built plenty of housing.

Unfortunately, it's not for most of the people in Boston. We have $2 billion worth of available housing in luxury buildings that are not affordable to people who live in Boston. We have the seaport that is built in the inundation district that had no planning whatsoever and will flood and cause taxpayers to bear the burden. We have the BPDA that built BioLabs well past the time when the bubble burst. And we have the BPDA that gave tax breaks, mitigation packages, and deals to the developers with no public benefit. Our problem is what Mayor Wu ran on, that we need to abolish the BPDA. She wrote the article we voted for and it's well past the time. The class of building is driven by steel in luxury buildings.

Private equity is the overwhelming force in the city of Boston that drives prices higher. and there are 200,000 cars that travel to Boston daily. If you want to reduce parking, why don't you put them on shuttles and put them in public housing, I mean public parking, instead of penalizing the taxpayers of Boston. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Vivian Gerard in person or Barbara Perameter.

What about me?

Oh, oh, perfect. You are actually on the in-person list. So we'll come back to you. We're just doing we're switching back and forth from in-person. Are you Vivian?

No, I'm Kaliga. You said I was next.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Kaliga. Sorry. Hi, Sharon. How are you? Thank you. Sorry. Go ahead, and then they'll be next.

It's okay. First, I want to say, because I only have two minutes, I'm going to talk fast. We're going into a new year, so we need to start thinking a lot different in this year to come, I'm hoping. First of all, this was not even with the panels. So I would urge, because this issue needs to be further discussed, that Lori Radwin, who has the data, should be part of a panel the next time this is discussed. Shirley, okay, and Diane Valley as well. I am here because We are different than any other city. And our neighborhoods are very diverse and different. And every project is different. So I would ask, I do realize there is some spaces parking that is not being utilized. So what we really need to do is make sure that

Each project has to do a study with the people from the neighborhoods that are being affected for each project because if you take the time in the front, you don't have as many problems at the back end. Okay, so there should be some minimal parking requirements for certain projects in certain areas. It is a case-by-case basis. And what Lori said about Rossi Square, they have already done things. Squares and streets has been awful there. And the people most adversely, it was not done equitably. The people who are protected classes suffered very much and are suffering very much from what they did with the parking there. That is wrong. Okay? And, again, we use some words too much, like progressive, like affordable, and they have no more meaning because what we call affordable when it comes to housing is not really helping the people that really need affordable housing.

What we really need is attainable home ownership to keep people here. and Student Housing. No more. It should be universities, the big landowners, they don't pay taxes. They should be taking care of their own students.

Thank you so much, Kaliga. Okay.

All right, Sharon. Thanks.

Next, we're going to go to, is it Nate Stell? Oh, sorry, Vivian. Oh, sorry, Vivian Gerard. Nate already went. Okay, Vivian. Sorry, I'm getting a little loopy now that I've been chairing this for three hours. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Vivian Girard. My wife and I are Phil's Corner residents and small developers and managers of unsubsidized affordable housing in Dorchester. Three months ago, we completed our most recent project at 141 Westville Street. It consists of 14 studio apartments that were approved under the City of Boston Compact Housing Pilot Program. Rents are between $750 and $870 a month per studio apartment. One essential component of the compact housing pilot program is that it allowed for development without parking requirement. Our building sits on a 3,000 square foot lot, and we couldn't have built it if parking was required. We decided to give priority to residents who don't own a car, and because our rents are truly affordable,

We were able to fill our building with scarf-free residents as soon as it was completed, and we have a long wait list of applicants. On a different project, not mine, not yours, last month I attended a meeting presentation for a housing project at 190 Baldwin Street in a Baldwin, Geneva area of Dorchester. The non-profit developer is V8AID and they are proposing 33 units of housing with 12 off-street parking. At an earlier meeting, some community members criticized the project for not having enough off-street parking. The developer ran their numbers and they found that if they were to increase the number of off-street parking spaces from 12 to 18, it would add about $1 million to the development cost. That's like about $167,000 per off-street parking space in the neighborhood.

This is Baldwin Street in Dorchester, not Beacon Hill, so different. I conclude very briefly. In our view, off-street parking in the city is incompatible with cost-effective development. And if we want to lower our housing costs, The minimum parking mandate should be eliminated across the city.

Thank you so much, Vivian. Barbara Perameter. And then Eric Hero is next. Okay, perfect.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. My name's Barbara Parmenter, and I'm a resident of Brighton. My wife and I own and live in a two-family home that we inherited from her parents. It's the home she was born and raised in, so we are longtime Boston residents. I strongly support getting rid of costly parking mandates. We would love to build an accessory dwelling unit ourselves. or otherwise convert to a three family or maybe even a fourplex. We already have one friend with two adult children living downstairs, but we have so many friends of our age or with adult children that are struggling to live in this city. The idea of a small group of units where we can support each other as we age is a dream for us. I hope our forthcoming rezoning in Austin Brighton will allow for something along these lines, but it will be critical to not impose parking mandates on new housing.

I have a lot of respect for our zoning team, but they cannot possibly predict what parking needs will be for any given living situation currently or 10 years or certainly not 20 years from now. But at the moment, We are locked in by parking barriers that city staff 30 years ago imposed on our neighborhood, and only those with deep pockets can afford to get around those barriers. We all know that on-street parking can be a mess and needs to be managed better. But as we've experienced over decades now, imposing an arbitrary number of off-street parking spots is not the solution. This just makes the thing we want and need more of housing that's affordable, more expensive, and even impossible to build. So please let the city manage the curb and let us as property owners decide how much parking we need. Lift unnecessary and expensive mandates so they don't last another 30 years. And thank you, Councilor Durkan, so much. Bye-bye.

Yeah, thank you so much. Right on time. Okay, Eric Hero, and then Elvira, Elvira Mora. and then Fred Watts, Clifton Braithwaite, I don't know if he's still here, and then Amin Shankandas, Amanchon, sorry, I don't know if I'm getting this wrong. So that's the list in person, and then we're gonna switch back to, so just be ready. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you, Councillor Durkan, for holding this hearing. I would tend to agree with the preceding comments that this is probably one of the most I should say, first of all, my name is Eric Herrett. I live in Jamaica Plain, but that's a totally fine pronunciation of my last name. This is definitely one of the simplest and probably most concrete and possibly even politically feasible things the city could do to immediately impact the price of development. and the final price of housing. It's been said a number of times in this hearing, but I also would kind of echo some of the factual assertions that Lowering the cost of development really is all about making sure that the cheaper housing that we want to see more of can get built.

projects like Vivian's where you have a bunch of units on a very small lot that are in some ways kind of like the quintessential Boston housing type, which we are so known for, but which parking requirements like this, which came after almost all of the housing in our city was built, I just wanted to make sure I expressed my opinion that these requirements should be eliminated. Well, I see what we're doing today as absolutely a one size fits all approach. And this is one of those cases where if you were to propose it today, That we should tell everybody that they had to build a certain number of parking spaces. It would be back to the same exact question of we don't tell them how many bathrooms they have to build. We don't tell them how many closets they have to build.

You shouldn't be telling everybody how many parking spaces they need to build. There will just be waste.

Well, just so you know, ISD does tell you how many bathrooms you have to have.

No, no, no.

If you're a business, at least.

We won't make people build units of a certain size and... And when we do, it does tend to increase the cost of the project. Yeah.

Thank you so much, Eric. Thanks. And Elvira Mora, then Fred Watts, then Clifton, if he's still here, and then Aman. Okay.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, everyone else, for sticking around. My name is Elvira Mora. I'm here to fully express my support for amending the Boston Zoning Code to remove parking minimums for new residential development. Flexibility is key here in terms of enabling the homes that we need and maintaining our bustling main streets and shops and restaurants and our beloved community centers that we all take part in. Forced parking minimums, as you heard today by many experts and advocates, are often an obstacle to achieving our shared goals of abundant, affordable housing in sustainable communities. They require the construction of excessive parking, which drives up the cost, and Consume Space which could have been used for other factors and other amenities and this also exacerbates the scarcity that we have of homes to rent or buy. In Roslindale, we've made significant strides to advocate for rapid bus lanes, affordable housing on top of beloved small businesses, and recently passing our squares and streets small area plan.

Rosindale has not fallen thus far. It is still bustling with a robust community of folks that deeply care for each other, visit their local spots, and just are able to walk and have that flexibility to stop for five minutes to pick up a coffee order and then leave to their next destination. Removing parking minimums, as has been stated before, does not mean removing parking altogether. but rather home builders will still be able to provide parking for new developments and have the opportunity to house our neighbors. New development is not strictly for transient folks. but also for our residents to have the opportunity to plant roots here. From a college student that wants to go and start their life here, from a retired family that wants to Stay in Boston. From other cases that are real world experiences, Boston is a place that they want to call home. We have a housing crisis, not a parking crisis.

And I urge you to support parking flexibility to make it easier and more affordable. for all residents to find housing solutions that work for them. Thank you.

Thank you, Elvira. Fred Watts. You have two minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. My name is Fred Watts. I live in Dorchester. I support the removing of parking minimums. My predecessors here have made pretty solid cases on why the concept of parking minimum was dubious to begin with, but I'm here to play devil's advocate for a moment. Let's assume it's in the city's interest to set rigid minimums. And let's assume that there's going to be no progress in alternatives to driving like, say, mass transit or cycling. The decisions and developments made today were going to last 50 years, 100 years. Our built community endures. So do we expect there to be more drivers or more driving in 50 or 100 years? I don't think so. Gen Zs have had dramatically fewer driver's licenses than past generations, and so far that seems like a very I see at least someone here follows that trend. A very sturdy trend, in spite of the fact that now some Gen Zs are well into their 20s.

Elderly Americans, they peak in their car ownership with two to three vehicles in their 50s and 60s, but once they reach 70, they often drop one or two cars. And that's one of our largest growing demographics is the elderly. Families are getting smaller. This fact may make us uncomfortable and perhaps is due for much other conversation, but We should reflect that reality, at least in our parking. That's not the place to change it. The cost of cars and car insurance outpaces inflation. This was true well before the pandemic, and although I'm not a... Great hedge fund manager or a profit, I think that economic forecasts suggest that the cost of cars is not gonna go down anytime soon. Essentially, all this is to say, Cars aren't going away, but their use as an appendage of adulthood is waning. Please give us a city with the flexibility to evolve based on actual future need. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Clifton Braithwaite? I don't think he's here anymore. Okay, next we're gonna go to Aman. Sean Curtis? Okay, awesome. Thank you.

Hi, guys. I'm Aman. I'm a resident of Cambridge for the past three years, and before that, Somerville. I've been car-free, bike commuter, and was an engineer in Cambridge for those three years. And when I started at the company, Some of the people who were well into their 30s and early 40s had never owned a car. They've lived in Cambridge for a while and been in other cities where car ownership just like never added up for them in cost. And because of never owning a car, they chose more active lifestyles, more sustainable lifestyles, things that were healthier for them and more affordable for them. And they didn't want to get time sucked into being on the highway for a long time. And when I say we all want to choose a sustainable lifestyle, and that doesn't really mean just about the climate, it really just means You know, I want to live healthier and happier for longer.

By keeping parking minimums in Boston, you make it harder for people to choose sustainable options to live their lives in different ways and, you know, stay healthy and happy. You force people into a certain amount of car dependency, which we all know that shouldn't exist in the city because it's quite literally the opposite of sustainable, healthy, happy living is sitting in a car. Removing these minimums is a huge step towards healing from car dependency that we've struggled with for the past 50, 60 years and making Boston a city for people. I want to echo stuff that was said by Councilor Durkan and other people here that the rhetoric should be around eliminating costly parking mandates which just improves the flexibility of you know allowing developers to do their due diligence which they're already doing of seeing the needs of the people you're doing a disservice to developers by not trusting them to

you know use their money wisely and we all know that developers really want to keep their money and to make more money so like why would they not you know do the research beforehand to see if their constituents or their the people who are living in those buildings would want a car or not If I'm a developer, I'm not going to build an apartment with a bunch of parking spaces and eat that cost knowing that the people in that neighborhood are not going to want a car or own a car.

Thank you so much, Awan. Okay, so we're gonna go back to virtual testimony. Brian Weil. Okay, perfect, okay. Kobe Frangillo. Javier Cuandro. Linda Kariewicz. I'm not sure who's left, so. Rick Yoder or Sarah Freeman.

Hi, Councilor Durkan. Can you hear me?

Oh, yes. Now I can. Thank you.

Apologies. Took a second to become a panelist. Yeah, real quick. Thanks for having me. My name is Kobe. I live in Boston without a car. I live in a building without on-site parking, like in most of our attractive If my building did have parking, my rent would be higher, there'd be fewer homes, more air and noise pollution, more curb cuts, breaking up the walkability of the streets. I walk to local shops. I bike to community group meetings. I take the T to work downtown. I pay taxes here. What I don't contribute is traffic or pollution. So I think it's kind of Wilde that are zoning still act like everyone must own a car. The city shouldn't be in the business of forcing extra parking spaces into every project. That drives up housing costs, limits what can be built, and makes it harder to welcome people like me who could support the neighborhood without adding more cars.

And to be clear for folks who do drive, this helps you too. Less wasted parking, more homes, and less competition for curb space. I truly think this is common sense. Let's Stop Mandating Excessive Parking in Boston. Thanks for the time.

Thank you so much, Kobe. Okay, Javier Cuantro or Brian Wild, depending on whoever's available.

Hello?

Oh yeah, here you are, Javier. Okay, here you go.

Hello, my name is Javier Colandro. I'm a resident of Fenway and also a member of Abundant Housing Massachusetts. And I am here to very much support the removal of parking minimums. And to me, it's all just a matter of trade. I unfortunately have a car. I'm one of those people that sort of has to have a car for work. I'm actually currently sitting on the pike, which is why I cannot turn my camera on. Parking in Fenway kind of sucks every now and then. It takes a while to find a spot. And that is annoying. But on the other end, I have so many friends that have left the city after graduating. None of them say that parking is annoying and therefore they left or that there's a lot of traffic and therefore they left. It is exclusively because living in the city is horribly, horribly unaffordable. It is not getting much better anytime soon.

and especially for there are many communities right now in our political environment but you know certainly historical as well I can speak to mine I'm from Mexico and I have family members currently in university who would love to be able to stay in Boston both is Boston's lovely but also because Boston Right now it's a safe haven for immigrants that cannot do so because they simply can't find the money to do so. And it's very unfortunate that they're put in that situation because we don't have the housing stock necessary. None of them would say, you know what, now that prices are cheaper, I will stay, but actually, I can't park my cars easily, so never mind. It's just such a massive trade-off. Damage to community and damage to people to have such unaffordable housing that it seems like a new brainer to me to just drop the minimums, build more houses, and let the market long-term take care of the park. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, Linda Kanowich.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, hi, Linda Canavich. I am a resident of the city, and also, just to let you know, I also worked EMS for 33 years in this city. Absolutely, the parking has to be looked at All I can tell you is that for South Boston, I absolutely believe that the developers will take full advantage If this minimum is dropped, we have had too many residents in our neighborhood that have been forced out, number one, because of the taxes, but number two, because... because of the inability to be able to stay in the neighborhood because they can't afford to buy homes either. And this is another problem that

concerns me is that you're talking about building affordable homes but that's not what's being done they're not affordable homes that are being built in my neighborhood you're building luxury condos you're not even building homes you're building Big ugly boxes with a bunch of little ugly boxes inside of them and if you walk around the neighborhood you can also see where people have paid huge money for condos where the quality has been anything but Good, and you can see buildings that have had to be resided because of the poor quality that these developers are building with. Also, I can also see where the developers... can take advantage of this and use this as a reason to offset the cost of them having to add and many more.

and I look at this as a scam by them because if the units get moved off site, where do they get moved to? This has happened before where the units are not built in other parts of the city and the money gets put into a fund in the city and nobody ever sees it. and there's no affordable units that are given into that project and the developers get away with this. So there needs to be safeguards.

Thank you so much, Linda. Rick Yoder.

There, got it.

There you go.

Thank you. I want to thank you for the hearing. My name is Rick Yoder. I'm a co-chair of the Mount Hope Canterbury Neighborhood which is on both sides of American Legion Highway on Eastern Rosendale roughly between Cummins and Block Hill Street. It's a mostly blue collar neighborhood. Mostly black and Hispanic. Terrible transportation, public transportation. And we're one of those neighborhoods that lack all those amenities that have been described by others that you might find on the Back Bay and Jamaica Plain, maybe even Rossendale Square.

To get to any of those kind of amenities, it's travel at least from the closest, one and a half to maybe four and a half miles. and public transportation. The only reliable effective transportation for us, public transportation, is into Boston. 32 bus and the Orange Line. So if your life is in downtown Boston, you're good to go. For most people here, it is not. They travel all over the city. We have construction workers. We have people with kids. They have to take them everywhere all the time. And then, of course, the shopping. The shopping means going out of our neighborhood.

With that said, I want to point out, so I can't support this as expressed because it says all You know, forbidding all minimum requirements of on-street parking for all development. It has to be nuanced. It has to depend on the situation in the neighborhood.

Thank you, Rick.

If we have more time, I have a few more points I'd like to make.

Okay, you can definitely finish your thought. I just want to let you know you hit two minutes.

Well, thank you. I just have one more thing I'll say on the question of... The developer will lower the rents if they don't have to put in on off-street parking. I think that's a fallacy. They will charge what they can get on the market. They're going to aim for at least market value. And as I've ever said, what we've noticed in our neighborhood, It's luxury apartment rentals much higher. If anyone asks, oh, where can I park my car? They'll say, oh, it's just in the neighborhood here. You'll find a place, don't worry. Don't always share the truth. I'm sorry if that hurts anyone's feeling, but that's been our experience over the last 15 years with new development in our neighborhood.

Thank you, Rick. Next, we're going to go to Sarah Freeman, who's virtual. Okay, okay, I guess we're done with public testimony. So I know I have had a rule that all my hearings have ended before five, but you know what? This clearly merited a lot of discussion. I'm really thrilled that this was the last hearing of the Boston City Council. I will be giving a report on this tomorrow. I think we heard a lot of nuanced conversation and I think I just want to clarify that this was a hearing order, not a zoning amendment, but that all hearing orders needed to be heard and many more.

This will remain in committee for the next few weeks. And then starting in the new year when we get sworn in on January 5th, We will take this back up. I really believe in listening to experts. I really believe in having a nuanced conversation. I think that is one that we had today. and just to respond to some of the conversation around what it means to have a nuanced conversation. Should we hear from people who are against this? I don't think the status quo needs a representative. The status quo doesn't need a representative because the status quo is how it is. When we make change, we have to have conversations about it and that is the type of conversation that I've been Honored to have as the Chair of Planning, Development, and Transportation. Looking forward to more conversations in the new year around this issue and many others.

And with that, I would like to adjourn the docket on 0161 with lots of thanks to everyone who testified and everyone who sent public testimony. Thank you.