Local News
In 2019, the city voted to repeal parking minimums near MBTA transit stops, which accounts for the majority of Somerville.
Somerville will completely eliminate minimum parking requirements that force housing and other developers to build with a certain number of spots – a zoning reform that prioritizes transit-users and could reduce costs for building housing.
In 2019, the City of Somerville already approved zoning to repeal parking minimum requirements “for the majority of the city,” it said at the time.
The newest ordinance was approved unanimously, with one councilor absent last Thursday. The ordinance affects “just the small part of the city that is not already in a transit area,” At-Large Councilor Jake Wilson said at the meeting.
Somerville joins its neighbor Cambridge in removing all parking minimums. Cambridge City Council was the first to vote in 2022 to remove all off-street parking mandates for new developments, though builders can still include parking spots, The Boston Globe reported.
Before approval, councilors addressed an increased need for accessible parking for people with disabilities. Councilor Jesse Clingan said only 200 spaces out of the city’s 30,000 are dedicated to handicapped parking, and Wilson said he would work with the Commission for Persons with Disabilities to increase parking.
Accessible parking still needed, while the repeal could support housing
City Council President Ben Ewen-Campen told the CommonWealth Beacon that adding more parking doesn’t address congestion and traffic. He said new parking will still be built, but it won’t be dictated by the city.
“We should let the people who actually understand how much parking they’re going to need – whether that is the homeowner or whether that is someone who’s building a new lab building – figure out how much parking they actually need and build it,” he told the Beacon.
Somerville Councilor Willie Burnley Jr. told NBC10 Boston that mandatory parking minimums affect housing prices for developers and residents.
“Data shows that mandatory parking minimums increase the cost of development, particularly for affordable housing developers,” Burley told the news station. “We have to make sure that our residents who love our community can afford to stay in it. We know this is going to pay dividends down the road in very subtle ways that are going to make Somerville more livable for everybody.”
In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu eliminated parking minimums for affordable housing developments in Boston in 2021, which she said would “take down barriers to the creation of new affordable housing across the city.”
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