Austin Gets Rid of Parking Requirements (Finally)

Austin's City Council has voted to remove the parking requirements from our use and zoning requirements. Why is this so exciting to me? Mainly the ability for my client's to have more potential supply of buildings & sites to choose from.

Let's say you are seeking to open your bar space, wine shop, or even a food hall... In order to have a business open in a space here in ATX (unless CBD zoning) you will need 1 per 1,000 parking spaces for these uses! This sounded fine in the suburbs of the 1970's, but finally Austin has updated the long overdue requirement.

Hey, scope out this waste of urban space :)

Some more great reporting on this topic from The Austin Monitor: https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2023/05/council-votes-to-get-rid-of-parking-requirements/

Over the past 14 years performing site selection for clients or to purchase buildings and adaptively reuse them, parking has been the initial box we check from a purchase or tenant user vantage point. If you didn't have the minimum requirement, you simply could not go into the building with (usually fun uses) certain uses like; breweries, brewpubs, bars, wine shops, restaurants, coffee shops, certain office or even maker type uses.

More wine shops and spaces the Austin community is seeking please. Less parking, like this:

Beginning in 2024, we will have access to so many more buildings and spaces for the wonderful uses like these. About half of my clients come from hospitality, retail, restaurant, and other more creative use of space that's often not defined by code or use laws. Let's celebrate this achievement by our city council! Great work, y'all.