2025 is shaping up to be the most impactful year yet for statewide parking reform legislation, and Washington has sprinted to the front of the pack. On Friday, April 11, the State House passed the Washington Parking Reform and Modernization Act (Senate Bill 5184) by a bipartisan vote of 64–31. The full Senate had already passed the bill 40–8. It now awaits the signature of Governor Bob Ferguson to become law.

SB 5184 enacts sweeping reforms to arbitrary, costly parking mandates in Washington state. The law will apply to cities with a population of 30,000 people or more—home to 49 percent of Washington residents—as well as to counties meeting the same threshold (with some exceptions for roads not developed to urban street standards). In these locations:

• Parking mandates for new residential buildings are capped at no more than 0.5 spaces per apartment, and 1 space per single-family detached home.
• Parking mandates for new commercial development are capped at no more than 2 spaces per 1,000 square feet.
• Parking mandates are fully eliminated for the smallest homes and businesses: residences under 1,200 square feet, and commercial spaces under 3,000 square feet.
• Parking mandates are fully eliminated for senior housing, affordable housing, child care facilities, and ground-floor spaces in mixed-use buildings.
• Buildings undergoing a change of use will no longer be subject to parking mandates (removing a common obstacle to the rehabilitation / adaptive reuse of older buildings in existing neighborhoods that were designed before mass car ownership).

Once the law is passed, most cities will have 18 months to begin complying with it.

Here are some notable lessons that other states and communities can take away.

Parking reform is not just about public transit.

Previous successful attempts at statewide parking reform have often linked the reforms to the availability of public transit. California’s AB 2097, passed in 2022, eliminates local parking mandates within ½ mile of “major” transit stops. Colorado’s HB 1304, passed in 2024, does the same within ¼ mile of bus and rail lines with service every 30 minutes or less. Administrative rules in Oregon that took effect in 2023 similarly target transit proximity, while encouraging 61 municipalities to eliminate mandates entirely (or implement a more complicated set of alternative policies).

It makes some sense: in areas well served by public transit, there is less need for car travel and parking. However, tying parking reform to transit reinforces two false ideas that are politically limiting for the broader parking reform movement: one, that the purpose of parking reform is to get people out of cars entirely. And two, that it’s only applicable in places where it’s convenient to be a non-driver.

These points tripped up a transit-oriented bill that was attempted in Washington in 2023, which never made it to a floor vote. This year, SB 5184 skirted the debate about transit quality by focusing on capping excessive mandates, which exist in communities large and small. Several cities in Washington, for example, require 2 parking spaces for any studio apartment within city limits—a level of parking would be unreasonable even in a place where everyone owned a car.

Reforming parking mandates allows parking lots to be right-sized to the actual need. Even when we know that most builders will still choose to provide parking when it is optional, cutting back arbitrary requirements frees them to make a better assessment of their specific needs, and creates more options for builders and residents alike.

By capping residential mandates and eliminating them for small homes, SB 5184 ensures that residents who don’t drive much have the option of renting a home without paying for parking they won’t use. These residents exist and deserve this option. In virtually every community where we at PRN have looked at the data, in every corner of America, we find that over 50 percent of renter households have one or no vehicles. Car-lite living is common, even in the places where car-free living is difficult.

Parking reform is for every kind of community, not just those already rich in public transit options.

Parking reform is not just about housing.

The surge of interest in parking reform has largely been driven by America’s ongoing housing crisis. This is no less true in Washington. But refreshingly, SB 5184 reached the finish line with crucial commercial parking reforms also intact. Capping commercial parking mandates at 2 spaces per 1,000 square feet will eliminate the common scenario in which a business is required to have a parking lot larger than the business itself.

But SB 5184 goes further in taking aim at the particular types of commercial development that are most conducive to a neighborhood-oriented, car-lite lifestyle. It eliminates parking mandates entirely for businesses under 3,000 square feet—your typical neighborhood coffee shop, corner bar, hair salon, etc.—where it is often completely prohibitive to make space for a parking lot. SB 5184 eliminates parking mandates for commercial spaces in mixed-use buildings.

SB 5184 also singles out childcare. The Sightline Institute and others have highlighted the contribution of onerous parking requirements to high child care costs and scarce options for families. Parking plays a role in a broader child care crisis that has massive implications for cost of living, quality of life, and the viability of starting a family in certain communities.

An affordable home really ought to mean an affordable life in a neighborhood that serves your needs. Thanks to its commercial parking reforms, SB 5184 will reduce families’ transportation and child care costs.

Storytelling gets the goods.

Parking reform in Washington won significant bipartisan support, including “Yes” votes from many legislators for whom parking was not initially a priority issue or even a particularly salient one. A big part of how advocates achieved this was by repeatedly and consistently telling stories of the harm done by costly parking mandates.

Those harms are often invisible to people who are not deeply familiar with the development process, because they consist of businesses that were never started, homes that were never built, and derelict land that was never revitalized. On the other hand, the what-ifs of changing parking policies are easy for skeptics to imagine and dread: What if my street is clogged with cars from an apartment complex that doesn’t provide parking for its tenants? What if my store’s customers can’t find a place to park?

To overcome this change-averse reaction, we must tell the stories of the harms that parking mandates cause today. Every hearing on SB 5184 included testimonies from those affected by parking mandates, including small business owners, affordable housing providers, incremental developers, tenant advocates, and non-drivers. An extensive Sightline report on the “State of Parking Mandates in Washington” dug into specific types of buildings and land uses that are difficult to create in Washington cities.

“Every planning department has stories of building projects that were scaled back or scrapped entirely because of parking mandates. Find them and make them visible,” advised Catie Gould who researches parking mandates for Sightline. “A couple shocking stories can build the case that reform is needed better than any data can.”

Even the design of the bill itself—targeting reforms toward sympathetic and important land uses such as low-income housing and child care facilities—was intended to make that sort of storytelling the centerpiece of proponents’ case. This strategy worked.

“Local control” remains the mantra of parking reform objectors.

Throughout SB 5184’s road to passage, individual city officials protested the idea that the policy would be “one size fits all.” Some state legislators, defending their “No” votes, cited opposition from the city they represent. (Tip for advocates: mayors and city councilors have a strong impact on state policy by advocating directly to their legislators.) The Association of Washington Cities also mobilized opposition to reform on the grounds that it would remove local control over parking policy.

Ron Davis, who worked with the broad, bipartisan coalition that supported passage of the bill said,  “Testimony and lobbying from supportive local government leaders was critical in combatting the AWC narrative. This was particularly effective when those leaders came from smaller cities. Some had passed parking reform. They showcased successes and the lack of political blowback from the changes. Others highlighted the need for change in their community, or the need for collective action across all communities to address the housing shortage. All were orchestrated to undermine the narrative pushed by the Association.”

Parking reformers need not accept the narrative that statewide reform is contrary to local control. One strategy is to emphasize that it’s actually parking mandates that are a one-size-fits-all policy. The factors that actually determine how much parking a given property requires are not local but hyper-local in nature, including things such as the tenant mix of a specific building (roommates vs. families, age, income, etc.), the walkability of the immediately surrounding blocks, and even the amount of on-street parking available on nearby curbs. Most of the harm done by parking mandates occurs when cities impose a blanket quota that doesn’t account for these hyper-local conditions.

The other common objection that warrants some response is that parking reform will require cities to manage their curbs and have contingency plans in place for a property that generates spillover parking demand. Not all towns have a history of parking management or a staff that feels they are prepared to implement pricing, permits, or enforcement.

The reality is that there are multiple ways to manage crowding at the curb, and off-street parking requirements are by far the most expensive and harmful of those ways. Regulating on-street parking is easily self-funding (at least anywhere that there is enough competition for curb space that it requires management in the first place), and curb management is a core function of local government which can provide many benefits.

To the extent that there is a learning curve for local officials, some state governments have provided helpful technical assistance and quick-start guides like these from Oregon and Colorado.  And, of course, PRN is here to help with all your parking-management questions as well!

Organize, organize, organize.

Once again, sponsors brought a staggeringly diverse coalition. A coalition letter shared by the Sightline Institute has over 56 signatories in support of SB 5184, and the list is quite similar to those who have supported parking reform in states such as Colorado and Minnesota in prior years.

The shape of the coalition for parking reform is clear at this point, and it includes:

• Housing advocates of all stripes, from YIMBYs to tenant unions
• Housing developers, both market-rate and affordable
• Environmental organizations of all stripes, including those focused on climate change (e.g. the Sierra Club, 350) and land conservation (e.g. American Farmland Trust)
• Small business owners and local business organizations
• Transit riders’ unions, and organizations supporting transit and active transportation
• Organized labor
• Social justice organizations, including environmental justice and tenants’ rights groups
• Individuals and organizations supportive of compact and walkable communities
• Local governments and politicians interested in productive growth and a strong tax base

There’s a simpler way to put it: parking reform is for everyone. And now, millions of Washingtonians will reap the benefits in years to come.