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As momentum builds to restore the core of the city, Atlanta is limiting the amount of parking that can be built for new real estate projects.
On Monday, Atlanta City Council made an amendment to the zoning ordinance by lowering the maximums for off-street parking in Midtown and Downtown, the most walkable and transit-accessible parts of the city. The change is intended to encourage alternatives to driving.
"Parking regulations can promote mode shift, encourage more productive land use, support affordable housing development by reducing parking structure-related expenses, and increase municipal tax revenues," said City Councilmember Jason Dozier, who introduced the legislation, in a post on Twitter. "And it's the right thing to do. We need space for people, not car storage."
The changes include dropping the maximum amount of off-street parking allowed for Downtown office buildings from three spaces per 1,000 square feet down to two spaces. For residential development in Midtown and Downtown, only 1.1 spaces can be built for each one-bedroom unit and 2.1 spaces for units with two or more bedrooms. The former residential maximums allowed up to 1.5 spaces and 2.5 spaces, respectively.
For the most part, the city's zoning regulations do not mandate parking in the city's largest central business districts. But developers often say investors require a set amount of spaces before providing construction loans. In July, Dozier told Atlanta Business Chronicle that he pared back the caps he initially wanted to put in place in light of financing constraints.
Dozier considered the ordinance after early site plans for One Centennial Yards – a set of office towers planned as part of the redevelopment of The Gulch – included more than 1,300 parking spots. The developer is now revising that number of spaces. Land-use and transportation advocates have critiqued the amount of parking at Buckhead, Midtown and Downtown projects, especially when proposed near MARTA stations.
The parking caps coincids with MARTA's efforts to restore ridership, which fell by 30% to 35% over the past decade. The transit agency is rolling out a multi-billion dollar expansion, redesigning its bus network and rehabilitating rail stations to attract and retain riders.
"Just because we build less parking doesn't necessarily mean folks will instantly desire to walk, bike or take MARTA," Dozier told the Chronicle in July. "But at the very least, the city should be putting policies in place that at least makes that more likely to happen."
Multiple developers are leading projects that aim to reenergize Downtown, including CIM Group's Centennial Yards, Lalani Ventures' redevelopment of Underground Atlanta and Newport RE's plans for Historic Hotel Row. The district is currently known for tourist destinations, aging office buildings and government facilities. About $3.8 billion will be invested in the district in the next five years, according to estimates from the community development organization Central Atlanta Progress.
Meanwhile, Midtown has seen record levels of development, much of it spurred by the growing interest of technology companies to relocate in the area. Sites once considered undesirable to build ambitious projects are now crown jewels in the increasingly site-constrained Midtown core.