(1) The general assembly finds,
determines, and declares that:
(a) There is an extraterritorial impact when local governments enact land use
decisions that require a minimum amount of parking spaces;
(b) Residential developments frequently have more parking than is utilized,
which adds to housing costs and encourages additional vehicle ownership and
vehicle miles traveled. According to the regional transportation district study titled
Residential Parking in Station Areas: A Study of Metro Denver, unsubsidized
housing developments near regional transportation district stations provide forty
percent more parking than residents utilize at peak times, and income-restricted
housing developments provide fifty percent more parking than is used.
(c) The 2021 study Parking & Affordable Housing of parking utilization at
affordable housing developments along the front range found that half of parking
spaces built on average go unused, and that requirements can be up to five times
the need especially for buildings serving lower area median incomes;
(d) Local government land use decisions that require a minimum amount of
parking spaces beyond what is necessary to meet market demand increase vehicle
miles traveled and associated greenhouse gas emissions. According to a University
of California Institute of Transportation Studies article titled What Do Residential
Lotteries Show Us About Transportation Choices?, higher amounts of free parking
provided in residential developments cause higher rates of vehicle ownership,
higher rates of vehicle miles traveled, and less frequent transit use.
(e) According to the study Effects of Parking Provision on Automobile Use
in U.S. Cities: Inferring Causality in the journal Transportation Research Record, an
increase in parking provisions from one-tenth to one-half parking space per person
is associated with an increase in automobile mode share of roughly thirty percent;
(f) According to the article Households with Constrained Off-Street Parking
Drive Fewer Miles in the journal Transportation, vehicle ownership rates are
fourteen percent higher for households with more than one available parking space
per unit compared to those with one or fewer, and for every additional vehicle per
household, the household travels on average seventeen more miles of total vehicle
miles traveled per day;
(g) Coloradans drive more miles per person than they used to, which puts
stress on transportation infrastructure and increasing household costs. Since 1981,
per capita vehicle miles traveled in Colorado have risen by over twenty percent
according to data from the federal highway administration.
(h) Increased vehicle ownership and the resulting vehicle miles traveled
impact neighboring jurisdictions by increasing congestion, roadway infrastructure
maintenance costs, air pollution, noise, and greenhouse gas emissions;
(i) Given the close proximity and interconnected nature of jurisdictions within
Colorado's metropolitan regions, many residents travel frequently between
jurisdictions for work, shopping, recreation, and other trips;
(j) In Colorado's major cities, a significant share of employees commute to
jobs in the city but live elsewhere, including seventy percent of employees in
Denver, forty-five percent in Colorado Springs, sixty percent in Fort Collins, fifty
percent in Pueblo, and sixty-five percent in Grand Junction, according to 2021 data
from the federal census;
(k) Excessive parking requirements limit compact, walkable development by
mandating additional space between uses, which then necessitates driving to reach
most destinations;
(l) Lower density development has lowered revenue and increased capital
and maintenance costs compared to more compact development. National studies,
such as the article Relationships between Density and per Capita Municipal
Spending in the United States, published in Urban Science, have found that lower
density communities have higher government capital and maintenance costs for
water, sewer, and transportation infrastructure and lower property and sales tax
revenue. These increased costs are often borne by both state and local
governments.
(m) Vehicle traffic, which increases when land use patterns are more
dispersed, contributes twenty percent of nitrogen oxide emissions, a key ozone
precursor, according to the executive summary of the Moderate Area Ozone state
implementation plan for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards by
the Regional Air Quality Council;
(n) The United States environmental protection agency has classified the
Denver metro area and the north front range area as being in severe nonattainment
for ozone and ground level ozone, which has serious impacts on human health,
particularly for vulnerable populations;
(o) According to the greenhouse gas pollution reduction roadmap, published
by the Colorado energy office and dated January 14, 2021, the transportation sector
is the single largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in Colorado;
(p) Nearly sixty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from the
transportation sector come from light-duty vehicles, the majority of cars and trucks
that Coloradans drive every day;
(q) Section 43-1-128 (3) directs the department of transportation to establish
greenhouse gas reduction targets, guidelines, and procedures for state and
regional transportation plans, and the resulting greenhouse gas planning rule and
associated mitigation policy directives include a list of greenhouse gas mitigation
measures to achieve those targets, including the elimination of minimum parking
requirements and other parking management strategies;
(r) Local government land use decisions that require a minimum amount of
parking spaces increase the cost of new residential projects, which increases
housing costs. According to the regional transportation district study titled
Residential Parking in Station Areas: A Study of Metro Denver, structured parking
spaces in the Denver metropolitan area cost twenty-five thousand dollars each to
build in 2020 and use space that would otherwise be used for revenue generating
residential units, decreasing the profitability of residential development. As a
result, parking requirements that necessitate the construction of structured
parking spaces may discourage developers from building new residential projects,
or, if they do move forward with projects, force them to recoup the costs of building
excessive parking by increasing housing prices.
(s) Off-street surface parking costs up to ten thousand dollars per space,
and each space requires up to two and one-half times its square footage to
accommodate. As a result, off-street surface parking requirements also may
discourage developers from building new residential projects, or, if they do move
forward with projects, force them to build fewer units than they otherwise could
and recoup the excessive cost by increasing home prices and rents. An analysis
conducted by the Parking Reform Network found that an off-street parking space
can add between two hundred and five hundred dollars per month in rent. Whether
these costs are necessary varies from one building project to the next, and those
variables are not accounted for in mandated parking minimums.
(t) Minimum parking requirements put small businesses at a disadvantage
relative to large corporations. Large corporations have more capital at their
disposal to fulfill costly parking requirements and are less reliant on foot traffic,
human-scale visibility, and a sense of place to attract customers.
(u) Impervious surfaces such as those built for vehicle parking create an
urban heat island effect, contributing to rising temperatures, increasing energy
costs for air conditioning, and worsening ground level air quality. Excessive land
coverage of this kind makes stormwater management difficult and expensive, and
contributes to flash flooding and erosion, causing interjurisdictional conflicts and
legal disputes.
(2) Therefore, the general assembly declares that the required minimum
amount of parking spaces for a real property is a matter of mixed statewide and
local concern.