‘Unwinding really backward policy:’ California abolishes decades-old parking requirements
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday unraveled a decades-old statewide requirement that every home, office and business come with a specified number of parking spots — a policy that environmentalists and housing advocates say has fueled California’s car dependency and hindered its climate progress.
Newsom, just back from an international climate conference in New York, announced in a video that he signed AB 2097, which frees developers of parking requirements for new housing and businesses located within a half-mile of a public transit stop. The regulation won’t prohibit developers from building parking in their projects but will ban local jurisdictions from imposing strict off-street parking allotments.