Local advocates celebrate Colorado cities’ leadership on parking reform to tackle housing affordability and climate change
Contact: Matt Frommer, Transportation & Land Use Policy Manager
mfrommer@swenergy.org | 908-432-1556
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[DENVER, CO] – In the past two weeks, Denver and Boulder finalized transformational and long-awaited updates to their development codes, eliminating costly and outdated minimum parking requirements for all new development. The change allows builders to right-size new parking supply, freeing up valuable urban space and resources for housing, small businesses, and other uses instead of excessive parking.
“Recognizing the well-documented harms of parking mandates, Boulder and Denver are emerging as leaders on zoning reforms that enable more housing construction at lower cost, and create more walkable and climate-friendly neighborhoods,” said Matt Frommer, Transportation & Land Use Policy Manager for the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) and the lead for SWEEP’s Housing Forward Colorado campaign.
“Parking flexibility is essential for building the affordable housing we need,” said Jonathan Cappelli, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Development Collaborative, a coalition of 24 nonprofit affordable housing developers. “Thanks to this reform, we can stop sacrificing new affordable homes for the sake of parking spaces that sit empty, as well over half of households in income-restricted housing near transit don’t own a car.”
“Excessive parking reinforces our unsustainable dependence on cars and driving,” said Jill Locantore, Executive Director of Denver Streets Partnership, a coalition of community organizations advocating for people-friendly streets in Denver. “This reform will help right-size the parking supply, and allow more space for land uses that support walking, biking, and transit.”
“Denver’s arbitrary parking mandates vastly overestimated the city’s parking needs, artificially driving up costs and hindering housing construction,” said Kevin Matthews, lead for YIMBY Denver, a grassroots group that advocates for housing abundance. “Denver can now focus on implementing policies that manage the abundant parking we already have, and move to policies that can create abundant housing instead.”
Boulder and Denver are the second and third cities in the state to eliminate parking mandates citywide, following Longmont, which led the way in 2024. In the face of an affordability crisis fueled by a housing shortage and unsustainable sprawling development patterns, at least 90 cities nationwide have fully eliminated their costly parking minimums. Several other Colorado cities are considering or have already passed similar reforms:
- Fort Collins eliminated parking minimums for multifamily development and is considering removing mandates for commercial development.
- Littleton eliminated parking minimums for all residential construction.
- Wheat Ridge eliminated parking minimums for multifamily housing.
- Louisville eliminated parking minimums for multifamily housing near transit.
In fact, more than 1.8 million people on Colorado’s Front Range now live in communities that have recently removed or are in the process of removing minimum parking requirements for multifamily housing and beyond. For many, this change was prompted by state legislation, House Bill 24-1304, but many cities are taking the opportunity to go above and beyond the state’s minimum requirements. SWEEP’s Land Use Progress Report highlights municipalities that have taken action in the past year to align their zoning codes with the state’s 2024 landmark housing and land use legislation.
Parking reform, addressed by HB24-1304, has emerged as the most impactful pro-housing land-use strategy available in Colorado. The Colorado Energy Office projected that eliminating parking mandates will increase the amount of feasible housing development opportunities by 80%, and near transit by 180%, without any changes to other zoning regulations. This is because parking mandates require new properties to include a certain number of parking spots regardless of the project’s actual needs. That drives up housing costs, restricts housing supply, and wastes valuable land. In Colorado, studies of affordable housing and transit-area housing development found that 40-50% of parking spaces sit empty during peak periods.
Colorado is 105,000 homes short of a stable housing market, giving it the fifth highest home prices and third highest rent in the country. Allowing more housing options near transit, jobs, schools, and other destinations – made more feasible with parking flexibility for new development – will reduce pressure to sprawl into Colorado’s open spaces and natural lands. This type of “strategic growth” within existing neighborhoods results in shorter commutes, less pollution, lower land and water consumption, and more affordable homes for everyone.
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Housing Forward Colorado is a project of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP), a public interest organization promoting greater energy efficiency, clean transportation, and beneficial electrification in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. In spring 2025, SWEEP launched Housing Forward Colorado to advance pro-housing and smart growth policies, and to support the effective implementation of the 2024 state land use laws.