The Somerville City Council will be working with city staff to establish a plan for removing mandatory parking space requirements.

By Jim Clark

At the latest meeting of the Somerville City Council on Thursday, March 14, a resolution was put forward by Ward 3 City Councilor and Council President Ben Ewen-Campen and City Councilor At Large Willie Burnley Jr. that the Administration collaborate with the Council to draft a zoning ordinance to remove the requirement to build unnecessary new parking spaces.

Ewen-Campen led off the discussion by explaining the purpose of the resolution saying, “Any time we bring up the words ‘minimum parking requirements’ it’s an incredibly hot-button issue and it is also an issue that is easy to be misunderstood and to misconstrue what we are actually discussing. And I would actually argue that this conversation is, at least for me, has been very counter-intuitive.”

Ewen-Campen went on to explain that he received many calls concerning the proposed change in zoning rules. “News reporters asking me why I am trying to get rid of a bunch of parking,” he said. “I just want to be incredibly clear from the get-go here what this proposal does and mean and what Councilor Burnley and I are proposing.”

Ewen-Campen continued, “No one in Greater Boston needs us to tell you that we have incredibly bad traffic. We have some of the worst traffic in the entire country. And one of the prime reasons we have such bad traffic is because historically we have allowed or even encouraged large developers – in particular large commercial developers – like in Kendal Square, like in large commercial areas in Boston – to build enormous parking garages. And this creates a major incentive for the people who work at these buildings to live in the suburbs and drive to work every morning and drive back every afternoon. And in fact they’re being basically subsidized to do so.”

The Councilor referred to a Boston Globe Spotlight series that recommended the removal of mandatory parking minimums. He reminded the Council of the many developments – such as Boynton Yards, Somernova and others – where hundreds or even thousands of parking spaces were proposed to be built.

“I think all of us know intuitively, and definitely through data, we cannot handle this many new cars in the community,” Ewen-Campen said.

It was then pointed out that the current zoning in large parts of the city set very high and completely arbitrary requirements to build minimum amounts of parking, whether or not it is needed.

“The city is actually forcing these large commercial developments to over-build parking that is unneeded,” Ewen-Campen said.

Councilor Burnley concurred with what was said earlier and added, “Our city, for a long time, has been pushing on several different urgent areas of concern, including affordability in housing, including climate goals, including making sure that our roads are safe, and that they are not overrun by cars – particularly by people who cut through Somerville to get to somewhere else.”

Burnely stated that parking minimums sit at the nexus of all of the mentioned city goals. “By removing the mandatory regulation that developers – including our neighbors who have homes, who may want to do renovations – by removing those requirements, we are freeing up people to make decisions that work best for the projects they have. Whether that is deciding that instead of adding two more parking spaces they can add two more units. Whether that is deciding that we can have green space where a parking lot would ostensibly go. This allows us and our community partners to have more freedom in deciding the direction of how Somerville will shape up.”

Ward 5 community member Devin Matté addressed the Council, speaking in favor of the proposed zoning change saying, “Parking minimums, I think, are terrible for Somerville in so many ways, and I applaud the Council for taking up the chance to get rid of them citywide. I’ve been tasking and advocating in various different ways in the past few years around parking minimums.”

Matté stated that part of why he feels so strongly about the issue is that there is much data and many studies indicating that parking minimums hurt communities that implement them. “They hurt us in terms of housing costs,” he continued. “A single parking space in a parking garage can cost as much as $50,000. And that $50,000 is not simply swallowed by the company that is building that garage, it is passed on to the people that live there or work there, either in the form of additional rent they have to pay. Or in the form of having to pay for that parking day over day out until that garage starts making a profit.”

Matté shared that studies have shown that adding a parking garage to an apartment complex can reduce the overall number of housing units being built by as much as 25 percent.

“When we have a housing crisis in our city we shouldn’t be allocating more of our valuable land to cars instead of people,” said Matté. “It’s also bad for the environment. Parking, by its nature, is pavement that is impervious, contributing to flooding and other climate issues. It also locks in and encourages people to drive, when if there wasn’t an opportunity to park there they might have used other options.”

The city’s Director of Mobility Brad Rawson then addressed the Council on the matter at hand, stating that Mayor Ballantyne and the city staff support the resolution. “As you have noted, Somerville’s adopted policy plan has included Climate Forward, SomerVision, Vision Zero and other official policy plans, direct the city to reduce vehicle miles traveled. We know that parking supply is the major influence on driving behavior. The science is in. Somerville’s 2019 citywide Zoning Overhaul as has been noted, did include many progressive tools to begin right-sizing motor vehicle parking in new development.”

Rawson indicated that the ordinances helped them permit several zero-parking apartment buildings and many other parking-light residential commercial projects.

“We have requirements to unbundle parking from leases,” Rawson said. “This is a well-established best practice that gives consumers more choice in how they spend their money in a tight housing market and reduces incentives to drive.”

Rawson conceded that the 2019 Zoning Overhaul did retain some legacy language that can create confusion, inefficiency and unintended consequences. “I will note that even in these cases where our current regulations are not as progressive as we would wish, city staff still invests immense time to reduce parking and right-size it in proposed projects. These case-by-case efforts have several downsides. One is that they create uncertainty and risk for the development community, which adds time and cost and acts as a drag on housing production. Second is that it slows down case review and constrains the development pipeline.”

Rawson expressed enthusiasm for the work ahead in working with the Council on bringing the proposed changes to fruition.

Ward 2 Councilor Jefferson Thomas (J.T.) Scott, in attendance of the meeting remotely, expressed his support of the resolution.

Likewise, Ward 6 Councilor Lance L. Davis indicated his support in moving the issue forward after inquiring about the procedural processes to follow.

Ward 1 Councilor Matthew McLaughlin pointed out that no minimum parking requirements exist through transit areas and suggested that the existing language could be altered to apply citywide.

“I’ve been trying to get a lot of zoning changes done, with mixed support from the city,” McLaughlin said. “Definitely not a public proclamation of support like I’ve seen tonight. And that’s been processed to death. So, I’m a little concerned as well when I hear ‘process’ – that we need to staff up and do these things. As far as I know, all it requires is just a few word changes.”

McLaughlin emphasized that he does support the proposal but also hopes that the city will get more involved in the other zoning policies that he has taken up.

Councilor At Large Jake Wilson also spoke in favor of the resolution.

Councilor At Large Kristen Strezo asked about what disability consultants were called in concerning the proposed zoning changes, as well as how these changes might impact seniors in the community.

In wrapping up, Councilor Ewen-Campen reminded the Council that the conversation was just beginning and that the matter would move on through committees and city staff for further study. The resolution was approved by the Council and the matter will move forward accordingly.