America’s fourth largest city is getting a concerted push for parking reform! A group of seasoned advocates for a safe and productive Houston, Texas, have united to form the Houston Parking Reform Coalition. They’re hoping to achieve a citywide rollback of costly mandatory parking minimums, similar to those passed in Austin in 2023 and Dallas in 2025.
This August, the Houston Parking Reform Coalition (HPRC) held its inaugural event: a Porch Concert and Parking Reform Social that was lively, well-attended, and leaves no question that there is a broad and powerful constituency for confronting the high costs of too much parking.
A Successful Campaign Kickoff
Emmanual Nuñez, Director of A Tale of Two Bridges and a founding member of the HPRC, has a history of organizing creative community events to promote walking and cycling infrastructure and safer street design. Nuñez had a lead on a backyard to host the kick-off, and a live band whose recent festival performance had been rained out. And the HPRC had an audience, following months of outreach to Super Neighborhoods (city sponsored civic clubs), local businesses, city council members, and their staff.
In all, 113 people registered for the Parking Reform Social, but the actual number in attendance might even have been higher, as passersby heard the band and dropped in. Organizers interviewed visitors to the event, asking questions like, “Were you familiar with parking reform before?” and “How do you feel it’s important now?”
They also took the opportunity to do some hands-on education with a “Replot the Lot” activity. Evelyn, wife of HPRC organizer Alex, is a fabric artist and teacher. She created a 3’ x 4’ black fabric model of a parking lot, complete with yellow trim marking the parking spaces. Guests were invited to use fabric cut-outs of houses, trees, animals, shops, and other shapes to reimagine and “rebuild” the lot. About 30 people participated, covering the model with homes, parks, shops, and other visions for a different use of the space. As Alex puts it, “I’ve drafted her into many of my urbanist shenanigans over the years now.”
“Replot the Lot” was loosely inspired by Fayetteville Strong’s “Rethink the Lot” demonstration and draws on the tradition of tactile public workshops like those organized by California-based Place It! These activities use art and play to invite people without technical backgrounds in urban planning to explore land use, its trade-offs, and its possibilities.
HPRC is considering bringing “Replot the Lot” to this year’s Park(ing) Day and potentially auctioning the exhibit afterward as a fundraiser for the coalition.
Why Houston Needs Parking Reform
Houston is famously the largest U.S. city without zoning. But that doesn’t mean without land-use controls. Requirements dictating how much off-street parking must be built are pervasive, and these parking mandates may be the largest regulatory factor promoting the city’s famously sprawling development, deadly overbuilt stroads, and supersized freeways.
In a low-lying city built around bayous and exposed to hurricanes, all that impervious pavement makes flooding more likely and more severe. And in Houston’s steamy Gulf Coast climate, all that asphalt stores daytime heat and keeps summer nights dangerously hot. In fact, Air Alliance Houston has already published an interactive StoryMap and analysis of just how excess heat correlates with the prevalence of parking across Houston neighborhoods. They found that parking coverage explains about 14% of the variation in summer temperatures, with land surface temperature increasing by 0.17°F for every 1% increase in parking coverage.
Parking affects walkability, the cost of housing, and the ability of small entrepreneurs to start up and operate. And in a city with a $174 million budget shortfall this year, the prospect of redeveloping some excess parking as wealth-generating homes and businesses should also cause ears to perk up.
The HPRC reflects this range of priorities and reasons to care about parking as an issue. Key participating organizations so far include:
- Strong Towns Houston, the local affiliate of the national Strong Towns organization, focused on promoting financial resilience and more productive development patterns.
- Air Alliance Houston, a non-profit advocacy organization working to reduce the public health impacts from air pollution and advance environmental justice.
- Friends of Columbia Tap, a hike-and-bike advocacy organization focusing on Houston’s trail network and promoting safe, equitable access for all Houstonians.
- LINK Houston, which advocates for a robust and equitable transportation network.
- A Tale of Two Bridges, which works to make Houston more connected and equitable by promoting off-street pedestrian connections and green space.
What’s Next?
There is a lot of momentum to build on.
Houston has taken steps toward parking reform already, and seen positive results. Most notably, the city removed off-street minimum parking requirements in East Downtown (EaDo) and parts of Midtown in July 2019, allowing property owners to decide for themselves how much parking they need. The HPRC hopes to portray this as a successful experiment worth expanding to the rest of the city. “There’s been a lot of interesting growth and development in the east end, including where I live in the 5th Ward and the greater East End,” says Ruben Garza of Strong Towns Houston.
Land-use and parking conflicts animate public debate in historic neighborhoods like Montrose and Houston Heights, where some residents believe that they are “running up against the limits of what can be built there, even though we know there’s room for more local development” according to Garza. Affordability is a concern, and old house teardowns for McMansions a source of drama. Elsewhere in mega-diverse Houston, issues of economic equity and opportunity animate locals. “If residents are involved” politically, says Garza, “it’s usually through their Super Neighborhoods,” so these civic organizations are a key focus of HPRC’s engagement.
The HPRC is also talking with city leaders about what can be done beyond mandate repeal, including Parking Benefit District proposals. They are reaching out to local businesses harmed by parking mandates, and planning more public events, including Park(ing) Day events with the ASLA on September 14th, and their own event in the east end of Houston on October 3rd.
The coalition is growing, and the possibilities are exciting. Parking reform could be transformative for Houston.
And beyond Houston. A statewide coalition for parking reform at the Texas legislature is also taking shape. We’ll keep you all posted more on that effort as it develops.
