State Preemption in Theory and Practice
The Case of Parking Requirements
Amy Lee (UC Davis), Adam Millard-Ball (UCLA), Michael Manville (UCLA)
Minimum parking requirements—zoning regulations that require a certain number of parking spaces to be built with new developments—come with a long list of downsides. The requirements increase the costs of development, reduce housing densities, subsidize car ownership, and reduce walkability. They also make it difficult to adapt and reuse historic buildings. In response, cities as diverse as Anchorage, Buffalo, and San Diego have reduced or eliminated parking requirements in recent years.
In 2022, California became the first state to eliminate parking requirements in certain neighborhoods. Assembly Bill 2097 (AB 2097) prohibits, in most circumstances, local governments from imposing parking requirements within a half-mile of an existing or planned major transit stop such as a rail station, ferry terminal, or the intersection of frequent bus routes. We examine how cities are responding to this new statewide law and draw out lessons not just for parking policy, but for other types of state preemption of local land use regulations as well.
Key Research Findings
Overall, AB 2097 is proving to be less far reaching than its proponents promised and its opponents feared. The law ostensibly prohibits local governments from requiring parking near public transit. But cities that want to continue to impose parking requirements have found numerous ways to do so. On the other hand, the law has also provided the impetus for cities to go beyond state requirements.
California’s state parking law grants considerable local discretion. AB 2097 allows cities to continue to require parking for electric vehicle charging or for people with disabilities. Cities can claim exemptions if they make certain written findings. And cities are interpreting the area where AB 2097 applies—“within one-half mile of public transit”—in different and often creative ways. For example, some cities ignore tourist-oriented ferry terminals or planned rail stations. Some draw the half-mile radius from the rail tracks or station platform, which limits the area where parking requirements are removed, while others draw it from the boundary of the station parking lot, meaning many more parcels are captured.
Cities vary in how enthusiastically they are implementing AB 2097. Responses to this preemption depended on a city’s preexisting interests and the general attitudes of staff and elected officials to transportation and land use policy. Cities interested in parking reform used AB 2097 as a springboard and went above and beyond the state requirement. Some explicitly set out to “finish the job” of the state and eliminated their local parking requirements citywide, not just within a half-mile of transit. Cities facing resistance to new development or parking reform used AB 2097 as a protective shield. The state law gave staff and elected officials political cover to approve new housing with limited parking. Recalcitrant cities treated AB 2097 as an obstacle or subverted the law, for example by delaying or resisting its implementation or even ignoring parts of the law, such as its application to future transit stations.
No parking requirements does not mean no parking—but this isn’t always clear. The state law preempts parking requirements, not parking itself. City officials were sometimes skeptical of AB 2097 because they feared that developers would provide minimal or even zero on-site parking. But the developers we interviewed said they made their parking decisions based on market demand and understood that buyers, renters, and lenders probably all expected some parking, so they expected to use their new parking flexibility more moderately.
Enforcing statewide land use laws is challenging. Land use decisions are made by local governments, and the state cannot easily observe the metaphorical arm twisting and subtle pressure that cities and counties may exert on developers even in the absence of parking requirements. The structure of AB 2097 complicates state enforcement, as cities themselves determine whether a proposed development is “near transit” and thus falls within the scope of the law. The state can observe the amount of parking constructed, but not whether a developer would have preferred to provide fewer spaces than it felt compelled to build.
Amy Lee is a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the policy and politics of transportation and planning, and the decision-making processes that govern travel behavior.
Adam Millard-Ball is a professor of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. His research focuses on how transportation policies—including parking—can mitigate global climate change.
Michael Manville is professor and chair of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research areas are transportation, land use, and housing, and the interrelationships between those.