Denver Eliminates Minimum Parking Requirements Citywide

Construction projects in Denver will no longer need to include parking spaces, after the City Council voted to remove minimum parking mandates from the city's zoning code.

Beginning on August 11, developers will be able to choose whether to include new parking spaces in construction projects, and existing businesses and housing complexes will be able to eliminate current parking. Previously, most developments had to include a certain number of parking spots: one spot per dwelling unit for market-rate apartments, two spots per 1,000 square feet for retail and office space, or four spots per 1,000 square feet for restaurants and bars. Those parking requirements already didn't apply to single-family homes or some downtown neighborhoods.

Councilmembers passed a trio of bills to abolish the requirements citywide in a 9-3 vote on Monday, August 4.

"We have a housing crisis, not a parking crisis," said Councilman Chris Hinds, one of the sponsors of the proposal, during Monday's council meeting. "By abolishing outdated mandates, we reclaim our streets from empty pavement, turning neighborhoods into vibrant spaces where people can safely stroll, window shop and enjoy their community."

The vote came after more than an hour of late-night public comment, during which every one of the over two dozen speakers testified in favor of eliminating parking minimums.

Supporters say eliminating parking minimums will promote the development of more housing in Denver by reducing the costs of building and the time needed to review development applications. According to city staff, a parking space in a structured garage can add up to $50,000 to the cost of building a dwelling unit, while the city spends an average of 654 hours each year reviewing the complex parking regulations.

Reverend Laura Rossbert, the chief operating officer of the Denver-based affordable housing architecture firm, Shopworks, told councilmembers that parking mandates frequently prevent housing projects from getting off the ground.

"The parking we are required to build by code often far exceeds the demand of the building," Rossbert said. "There are many variables that inform how much parking will be utilized that are very nuanced and not easy to put into an easy formula for code. For example, proximity to walking and biking facilities, whether the development provided RTD passes for their staff and residents, etc."

Sponsors of the proposal argue that forcing parking to be built just leads to empty lots, pointing to a 2020 RTD study that found 40 percent of parking spaces were unused at residential properties near RTD stations, and 50 percent went unused at income-restricted properties.

The councilmembers who voted against removing parking minimums claim the change will be ineffective, arguing that developers will continue building new parking spaces regardless. The city provided various recent examples of developers adding more parking than legally required, like an office building at 1901 Lawrence Street that had no parking requirements but provided 633 spaces, or an apartment complex at 600 Park Avenue that provided 217 spaces.

"Banks and lenders and developers have kind of set the floor for us," said Councilman Kevin Flynn, who voted against the proposal. "I don’t think that doing away with this requirement, because we think we can trust developers and bankers to do the right thing, is the way to go. ...They’re still building them, and they’re still going to charge the rents that are required to recoup that cost."

Flynn instead advocated for replacing parking minimums with parking maximums, so developers are limited in the number of spaces they can build.

Councilwoman Sarah Parady, another sponsor of the proposal, said she is interested in pursuing parking maximums in the future. She also spoke of possible policies to make it more difficult for landlords to charge tenants for parking they don't use, or to establish parking benefit districts where parking revenue is used for improvements within that district.

“I agree, on the one hand, that we’re not going to see a huge reduction in the amount of parking around the city," Parady said. "On the other hand, I do hope that we do see a move away from households owning one or more cars and having to get around the city that way because there aren’t other ways to do that."

Other opponents have expressed fears that removing parking minimums will force residents of new buildings to park on street sides, leading to crowded streets, increasing the costs of existing parking lots and garages, and making it more difficult for people to drive to Denver destinations; they've also emphasized that the city's public transit system is inadequate and does not eliminate the need for driving.

Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer took issue with the proposal stemming from the state government. City staffers said they decided to propose eliminating Denver's parking minimums while analyzing the impact of implementing a new state law passed in May 2024. That state law, which took effect on June 30, prohibits cities from enforcing parking minimums for most new multifamily residential properties within a quarter mile of transit stops or stations.

"This is a local control issue," said Sawyer, who voted against removing parking minimums. "The City of Denver should have joined several other municipalities across the state of Colorado in suing the State of Colorado for infringement on our local control, because the state law is making us do this."

Denver is going beyond the state law by removing all parking minimums instead of just those for multifamily residential developments near transit routes.

Only two other Colorado cities have abolished all parking minimums: Longmont in May 2024, and Boulder in July 2025.