Huge parking policy changes coming to California

Huge changes are coming to parking policy in California, thanks to three bills that Gavin Newsom signed this week. With California's policy changes often rippling out to other places across the US, it's doubly helpful to see what's coming:

1) A decade or two ago, it was extremely rare that apartment dwellers could save cash by forgoing parking. These days, separating those costs by "unbundling" parking from apartment lease is more common, but far from universal. Wendy Carrillo's AB1317 will make unbundled parking required starting 1/1/25 in almost all new apartment buildings (over 15 units) in the counties where 1/2 of Californians live.

At Parkade, we make it easy to unbundle parking, but we've heard from countless property owners or managers who want to charge for parking but don't want to be the first in their region. AB1317 will make it required, making the choice easy.

2) While California has slashed parking requirements in some places, they remain in many cities and sites. That puts a floor under how many parking spots a developer has to build. And while they petition cities to waive those requirements if they find suitable extra parking to rent from another party, nothing requires cities to agree to the waiver.

Laura Friedman's AB894 changes that, requiring cities to accept shared parking in lieu of new parking. This will cause a huge increase in the desire to share parking, and will mean better, more walkable developments. And the Parkade is excited to help facilitate the logistics of these sharing arrangements!

3) Last month, a 4-year-old was run over and killed by a driver 5 blocks from my home, while crossing an intersection. Throughout California, many cities still try to squeeze parked cars all the way to corner, making collisions like these very likely, because drivers and pedestrians can't see each other. Alex T. Lee's AB413 mandates 20 feet of no-parking zones at ALL intersections throughout the state!

Yes, this might claw back 1-2 spots on each block, but at Parkade, we manage parking at buildings throughout the country. And nearly every single one of our partner buildings sees plenty of vacant parking off-street, so we're excited to help connect residents and guests with those spots, so they don't have to park on-street.

I want to live at the bleeding edge of both parking technology and policy, and California is the place to be for both. Big thanks to legislators and Gov. Newsom, as well SPUR, California YIMBY and Streets for All (and everyone else) for pushing these bills too!

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