North Four Corners News ♦ April 2024

Parking Requirements Reduced Near Public Transportation by County Council

By Sharon Canavan

On 5 March 2024, the Montgomery County Council unanimously passed Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 23-10, eliminating parking space requirements for properties near public transit when residential housing is developed or redeveloped.  This measure supports the planning goals adopted in Thrive Montgomery 2050 (Thrive) to increase housing affordability, to lessen reliance on private vehicles by encouraging public transportation use, and to reach climate goals by encouraging housing options that are less dependent on cars.  ZTA 23-10 becomes effective in early April.

ZTA 23-10 eliminates parking requirements for residential properties within a half-mile radius of a Metro or Purple Line station, and within a quarter-mile radius of an existing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Station or a BRT Station that is funded for construction in the current Capital Improvements Program.  The zoning change does not affect parking requirements on existing property; it only applies to residential properties that are developed or redeveloped in the future.

This zoning change affects the NFCCA community because it applies to newly developed properties located within a quarter mile of the Four Corners intersection (University Boulevard and Colesville Road) where the FLASH BRT station is located near the Four Corners Pub.  Although a BRT route on University Boulevard is planned, construction is not currently projected for funding, so properties fronting on University Boulevard are not affected except for the area east of Four Corners Local Park, which is within a quarter mile of the FLASH BRT station.

Before adoption of this zoning measure, single-family, two-unit, and townhouse properties were required to have two parking spaces.  A sliding scale ranging from one-to-two parking spaces based on number of bedrooms applied to multifamily properties.

The Thrive plan also recommended increasing density along transportation corridors by rezoning single-family residential areas to permit redevelopment as two- to four-unit dwellings and up to 20-unit small multifamily properties near major transportation corridors.  It has yet to be determined whether these zoning changes will be considered county-wide or piecemeal, for example, as part of planning changes to be proposed by the University Boulevard Corridor Plan.   ■