Why parking requirements need updating

The city zoning ordinances that require businesses to provide off-street parking have not been revised since 1963, the same year the Massachusetts Turnpike was being constructed through Newton, when cars ran on leaded gasoline that cost around 30 cents per gallon.

A lot has changed since then. These parking requirements have not. Today, they serve to repel new business and hamper existing businesses that wish to expand.

Here are several problems with our approach to managing parking:

1. A “one-size-fits-all” approach should not be applied throughout the city. Whether located on Route 9 or in a village center, a restaurant must provide one off-street parking space for every three customer seats. To open a 30-seat restaurant, you would need 10 off-street parking spaces (plus more for employees, but let’s keep the math simple for now). Can you find 10 off-street parking spaces to rent in a village center?
2. Our approach ignores human behavior. People may visit more than one business when they park. And, people can come to village centers by commuter rail, T, bus, or bike. Some may even walk.
3. The requirements require illogical solutions. Many commercial spaces have grandfathered “phantom” spaces. Why should it matter for parking today that a storefront was once a butcher shop or a rug store? Our regulations should be planning for our present and future needs, not grandfathering past uses.
4. The parking waiver process can be an expensive crapshoot. A parking waiver requires 16 of the city’s 24 aldermen to vote “yes.” A business can spend thousands of dollars hiring consultants and attorneys and still fail to obtain the seats they need.

What are the consequences of our one-size-fits-all zoning? It discourages restaurants in our village centers and – in their place – encourages businesses with lower parking requirements. These may include banks and the modern equivalent of what the ordinance calls “beauty parlors.” In short, our parking requirements are at odds with the retail diversity and economic health of our village centers.

Planning Department staff members are actively studying parking requirements and considering possible improvements, as are several aldermen. In a follow-up to this column, we’ll examine those discussions and the strategies used by other Massachusetts municipalities.

As a Newton resident, what can you do? Contact your three ward aldermen. Tell them this: We need a better way to balance the needs of village center merchants with the needs of parking where space is so scarce.

[SIDEBAR. See the main post.]