Durham joins Raleigh in dropping parking minimums for new construction
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Durham has become the latest city to drop parking minimums after its outgoing city council passed a wide swath of changes to its building codes Monday night.
Why it matters: As the Triangle's housing market becomes increasingly more expensive amid a booming population, cities have started tweaking their zoning regulations and housing codes to encourage more construction and denser developments.
Flashback: Raleigh became the first city in the Triangle (and just the 24th in North America at the time) to drop parking minimums in 2022 — and developers have stopped building as much parking as a result, Patrick Young, Raleigh's director of planning and development, told Axios.
- No projects have been built with zero parking, he said, but "there are many (very many, maybe a majority) that have been built with less parking than was previously required — this is especially true for townhouse projects," he said in an email.
- Banks and lenders, he noted, are still requiring parking for projects to receive financing, but a reduction in parking has made many projects cheaper to build.
Driving the news: The efforts are not without controversy, and the reforms to Durham's housing codes — called Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development, or SCAD — became a flashpoint in the most recent election.
- After delaying it several times, Durham City Council pushed the final vote to take place past the election but before new council members join in December.
- A vote in favor of the reforms recommended by the city's planning department passed 4-3, with yes votes from Mayor-elect Leonardo Williams, and council members Mark-Anthony Middleton, Javiera Caballero and Jillian Johnson.
What's included: In addition to eliminating parking minimums, the SCAD rules approved Monday night include:
- Requiring projects with more than 100 units to include commercial or civic space.
- Increasing the maximum size of accessory dwelling units (ADUs).
- Allowing detached row houses to be built in the city.
- Speeding up site review processes for small-scale developments, like projects with 10 or fewer townhouses.
What's not included: The city council took out several proposed changes that city staff did not give a full recommendation to, including:
- A controversial change to the city's affordable housing density bonus — which lets developers add more units or build taller in exchange for affordable units — to require more of such units but for a shorter amount of time.
- Allowing ADUs to be built before primary buildings.
- Allowing residential development in areas zoned for some industrial uses.
What's next: The approved changes will begin Jan. 1.
- The parts of SCAD not approved could be taken up by the future city council or during the upcoming rewrite of Durham's unified development ordinance.