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Milwaukie planners explain why city cannot require parking and note bike-parking standards
Summary
At a joint meeting with neighborhood associations, planning staff said Oregon rules and state climate policy prevent cities from requiring parking citywide; developers are responding differently, and bike-parking rules remain in place.
City planning staff told neighborhood representatives that Milwaukie is not able to require automobile parking for new development under current state policy and implementing regulations, and described how that is playing out locally.
Planning Manager Laura Weigel explained that state-level actions including the climate-friendly and equitable communities policies (and implementing statutes referenced by staff) have limited cities— ability to require on-site vehicle parking for many housing types. Weigel said the intent is to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and to preserve land for housing rather than surface parking.
The staff briefing and subsequent neighborhood discussion highlighted immediate effects in Milwaukie: some developers provide on-site parking voluntarily, while others omit it. Weigel noted the result is a patchwork of approaches in new middle-housing projects; she also acknowledged resident concerns about curbside parking pressure, blocked driveways and mail-delivery interruptions on narrower streets.
Weigel reminded the audience that the city does maintain bicycle-parking requirements for many developments and that some projects include secure bike rooms (she cited the Chase Bank redevelopment as proposing a secure bike facility and 45 bicycle spaces). She also said that the city can consider sidewalk and frontage improvements as part of development conditions or accept fee-in-lieu payments from projects that do not provide frontage work immediately.
Residents raised operational issues: how to address vehicles blocking driveways and mailboxes, and how long code enforcement or police responses can take. Staff answered that blocking driveways is enforceable and that code-enforcement response times can vary; they encouraged residents to call code enforcement or the police for immediate hazards and to report persistent problems so the city can consider longer-term solutions such as street design changes or consolidated mailboxes in coordination with USPS.
Staff said they will continue conversations with neighborhood groups and the transportation-system planning advisory committee on curbside impacts, bike parking and related transportation improvements.
