Guest column: The evolution of Bend’s parking | Opinion | bendbulletin.com – The Bulletin

Parking in Bend has evolved over the last fifteen years and for many residents, not in a good way. This article describes how Bends parking requirements have evolved in preparation for the upcoming April 21 City Council work session on parking.

The starting point is the 2006 re-write of the development code, which relied on encouraging on-street parking to reduce off-street parking. For example, restaurant parking requirements were reduced by 70% and medical offices by 57%.

Another reduction came with a smorgasbord of parking credits options that an applicant can use to further reduce their parking requirements by another 20%. For example, credits were allowed for providing lockers and showers or having a transit line within 660 feet.

In 2016-17, city staff advocated the right-size parking movement, which is based on gathering data on local parking demand to strike a balance between local parking supply and local parking demand. This movement was started by Donald Shoup, a professor at UCLA who documented a significant over-supply of parking in many metropolitan areas where transportation planners used suburban parking requirements in urban environments. The Downtown Bend, Galveston Avenue and citywide parking studies completed in 2017 all used the principles of right-size parking.

Meanwhile, the 2016 urban growth boundary expansion adopted lower parking requirements for mixed-use projects and in the Bend Central District. In 2019, the parking requirements in the Bend Central District were reduced even further.

In August 2019, the Oregon Legislature passed HB 2001 requiring middle housing in all areas where single-family housing is allowed. Plus, no city regulation could cause unreasonable cost or delay to middle housing. DLCD, the state agency tasked with providing technical assistance to communities, began a yearlong process to draft new state regulations. Parking requirements were a constant point of contention in the DLCDs committees drafting these proposed regulations. In the last DLCD committee meeting on Nov . 24, Bends Planning Division representative lobbied unsuccessfully to remove an option that would allow the community to continue to choose their parking requirements. On Dec . 9, the Land Conservation and Development Commission wisely adopted regulations that allowed three paths to compliance, which included the path allowing communities to choose their parking requirements.

Bend immediately began the process to bring Bends development code into compliance. An ad hoc committee has been meeting every two weeks, and parking requirements are a point of contention. In the initial meeting, staff claimed there was only two paths to compliance. When some members pointed out the existence of the third path (communitys choice), staff stonewalled any efforts to use this third path by claiming the proof required for the third path was too hard for staff to handle.

In committee meetings, urbanists argue that reducing or eliminating off-site parking requirements would remove barriers to affordable housing. Right-size advocates argue that reducing or eliminating off-street requirements will not achieve the benefits claimed by the urbanists and lead to burdening adjacent existing businesses and residents.

In February, Councilor Melanie Kebler requested and was granted a work session to consider the elimination of minimum off-street parking requirements for all new development. Urbanists argue that this new trend (social engineering by force) is necessary to shift the community to tall, mixed-used urban cores and more walkable neighborhoods.

In response, a group of neighborhood association land use chairs compiled months of research on this new trend and created doesparkingmatter.com to display both sides of the issue. A survey was sent to members of neighborhood associations to gauge members opinion. The survey is available to anyone at the website. The sponsors of the website support right-size parking requirements based on local data and a community dialogue. Urbanist believe off-street parking will still occur, but they want the community to trust developers to decide how much. The council needs to hear the communitys voice (one of councils new goals).

Mike Walker is a retired civil engineer who worked over 40 years in land development including the redevelopment and management of two multi-tenant properties in Bend.

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Guest column: The evolution of Bend's parking | Opinion | bendbulletin.com - The Bulletin