Some industry experts say Orange County is requiring too much parking near multifamily development projects, and local housing, transportation and environmental advocates are pushing for policy changes that place less of an emphasis on cars.

County officials are listening. They say they’re in the midst of reducing parking standards in denser areas, revisions that could be introduced by early next year, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

This comes more than a year after Orlando joined several other major cities in eliminating minimum parking requirements for a section of its downtown corridor. It’s a trend that proponents say frees up more land for housing, encourages more walkability, better protects the environment, and could make housing more affordable.

“Parking requirements are often based on outdated assumptions about car ownership and usage patterns,” Nicholas Julian, a senior program manager with the National Association of Homebuilders, told GrowthSpotter. “As cities evolve and transportation preferences shift, reducing or eliminating parking requirements can help create more affordable and sustainable housing options.”

Orange County currently requires developers to build at least two parking spaces for each two-bedroom and three-bedroom unit and at least 1.5 parking spaces for each one-bedroom or studio unit.

For a recent proposal to build 900 apartment units near Disney World, the county required 1,635 parking spaces. Building a surface parking lot can cost as much as $5,000 per space, according to a recent report by the American Planning Association. That means that following the county code could have added an extra $8.7 million in overall project costs just for parking.

The applicant for this project, Intram Investments, requested a waiver from the county to allow an 8% reduction in parking spaces.

In a parking analysis conducted for this project, Maitland-based Traffic Planning and Design Inc. called the county’s parking requirements “excessive.”

It’s common for multifamily developers to seek out parking waivers from Orange County, according to Rebecca Wilson, an Orlando-based land-use attorney with the Lowndes Law firm.

And such requests, which require a land-use change, can extend the approval process by as long as six months. Every delay adds more cost to a project, resulting in higher rental rates, at a time when there isn’t enough housing to meet demand.

Wilson said she believes it’s time for the county to amend its parking space rules. However, she isn’t suggesting the county go as far as Orlando and eliminate minimum requirements altogether.

“The County’s Code overparks the needs of their residents,” she said in an email. “I believe that, for Orange County, eliminating the parking requirement for multifamily altogether would swing the pendulum too far.”

Some multifamily developers believe that parking requirements are necessary.

Oliver Cima, the vice president of development with Fort Lauderdale-based The Altman Companies, said eliminating them could have unintended consequences.

“In my opinion, minimum parking requirements are prudent to avoid developments overreaching on density by under-parking and offloading the burden of parking on others, such as relying on street parking or otherwise already existing parking spaces intended for other uses,” he said.

Buffalo, New York City, Minneapolis, Portland, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Raleigh, Boston, and San Diego are among a growing list of cities that have joined the movement to eliminate minimum parking requirements either citywide or in its downtown districts.

Orlando joined the trend last year, eliminating minimum parking requirements in the heart of downtown.

“We have a lot of highrise development in that area and a good transportation network and walkability,” said Elisabeth Dang, the city’s planning division manager. “So the feeling is if you’re a property owner who’s going through the expense of building in the downtown core, where all that transit is, it should be up to the property owner to decide how much parking they want to provide.”

When the request for the 900-unit apartment community and the parking-related waiver came before the Orange County Commission on July 11, nearly a dozen residents seized the opportunity to speak out against the county’s decades-old policy.

The residents belong to a group called Sunrise Movement Orlando, which, according to its social media page, is composed of high school and college-age people uniting to stop the climate crisis.

The group is asking that the county follow Orlando’s lead and eliminate them altogether.

“This process (of a developer) having to ask for reductions (through a waiver) creates more unintended problems than benefits,” said Giancarlo Rodriguez, 21, the group’s leader. “We believe ending parking minimums will help tackle the climate crisis, our current housing crisis, prepare Orlando for the future, and so much more.”

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