Changes to Parking Requirements Made Big Impact on Minneapolis

According to an article on Nick Magrino's blog, a 2013 change to parking regulations has lead to big changes in the city. "Housing projects outside of downtown and the University district generally required one parking space for each housing unit. After the changes, projects near high-frequency transit with 50 or fewer units had their parking requirement reduced to zero, and projects with more than 50 units had it cut in half, to one parking space for every two units," Magrino reports.

The changes to the affected neighborhoods are visible in the buildings going up. "When you're building that type of smaller project that, importantly, doesn’t require quite so much parking, one thing you can do that cuts down on costs substantially is not dig a gigantic hole. You can instead build some parking on the back side of the first floor where it's often tricky to put housing units anyway," Magrino writes. Besides changing the looks, this change in the law also changed the rents. "Underground parking spaces cost tens of thousands of dollars apiece. It's no coincidence that we've been starting to see market rate, new construction housing units renting for under $1,000/month."