What are parking mandates?

Parking mandates are a feature of zoning code that requires a certain number of off-street parking spaces be built on the premises of any new development or addition. The specific number of parking spaces is tied to a variety of variables, such as net square footage or number of expected tenants. In New York City, for residential projects, it’s tied to the number of planned units. The particular ratio of spaces needed per unit is determined primarily by zoning district, but varies too depending on factors such as whether or not the development will provide affordable housing.

Why was City of Yes trying to eliminate mandates?

Parking mandates first became a feature of NYC Zoning Code in 1950, and in 1961 expanded to include all residential, commercial, and manufacturing districts. Their intention was to allow city dwellers to have cars despite a densifying urban environment, and therefore increasingly scarce on-street parking. By forcing developers to include parking from the start, the city could thus accommodate an increase in people as well as cars.

However, it has often been argued that these laws are in fact artificially inducing demand for cars. In effect, part of a tenant’s rent or mortgage is going towards paying a developer back for providing parking spots every month, simply because those spots exist. At scale, this puts pressure on, and incentivizes, tenants to invest in car ownership since they are implicitly paying for the spot already.

Increasingly in recent years, New Yorkers, and residents in cities across the United States, have begun objecting to these requirements on various grounds. Many pedestrians and others using alternative modes of transit feel that the city is over-congested with cars, and these laws contribute to that. Especially for buildings located within half a mile of an MTA train line, commute times within the city are often faster by train than by car. If projects were no longer forced to provide parking, it wouldn’t necessarily inundate the street with cars, but rather may incentivize use of, and investment in, alternative modes of transit.

The requirements passed in 1961 remained in effect all the way until late 2024, when the City of Yes to Housing Opportunity passed and significantly reduced these requirements.

What did City of Yes do?

City of Yes divided mandates into 3 zones across the city – Zone 1 - the “Inner Transit Zone,” Zone 2 - the “Outer Transit Zone,” and Zone 3 - “Beyond the Greater Transit Zone.”

Within Zone 1, all parking mandates on residential developments or additions were removed. Previous to the passage of City of Yes, projects in Manhattan south of 125th Street were similarly exempt from parking minimums. This zone now encompasses all of Manhattan up to 155th St, and the parts of Queens and Brooklyn nearest to Manhattan including Astoria, Long Island City, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Clinton Hill, Downtown Brooklyn, Park Slope and more. This change means that significant portions of the maximum buildable area on particular sites can now be used for the construction of units rather than parking spaces, allowing for the potential construction of tens of thousands more units over time across the entire zone.

Within Zone 2, mandates were reduced by varying amounts by zoning district. For example, while previously developments within R3 zones were required to provide 100% of units with parking spaces, they are now only required to provide spaces for 50%. This will likely have significant implications for building typologies seen within these neighborhoods, as far fewer properties will now be required to build sub-grade or ground-level garages. This means a significant increase in potential buildable units within this zone as well.

Within Zone 3, mandates were left in place, as many local residents and politicians objected to the proposal on various grounds – citing its original purpose to not inundate street parking with the cars owned by tenants of increasingly dense new developments.

Now that City of Yes has passed, we are optimistic about the positive impact that the reduced requirements will have on development and housing affordability across the city. We believe that the coming years will prove out the positive aspects of reducing and removing parking minimums and that the concerns are often overblown. With that said, for the removal of parking minimums to be successful, a robust, well-funded, and well-run mass transit system across the city is required. In the future, the removal of parking minimums should be further considered and expanded across the city – as the initial City of Yes proposal called for.

December, 2025

RESEARCH TEAM

Galia Solomonoff, Director

Eddie Palka, Adjunct Associate Research Scholar, ‘18 M.Arch

Benjamin Vassar, Graduate Research Assistant, ‘25 M.Arch

Julian Krusic O'Donnell, Graduate Research Assistant, '26 M.Arch