Dallas planning commission pauses on citywide parking minimums, asks staff to draft revisions

The Dallas City Planning Commission on Jan. 16, 2025, heard a multihour briefing and public comment on DCA190002, a proposed amendment to off‑street parking and loading rules in the Dallas development code. After extended commissioner questions and more than 40 public speakers for and against the change, the commission asked staff to draft ordinance text reflecting a set of changes and held the hearing open until Feb. 13, 2025.

The commission’s action follows a staff recommendation — and a prior Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee (ZOAC) recommendation — that would, in broad terms, reduce most parking minimums and create a new Transportation Demand Management Plan (TDMP) and updated parking‑design standards. Michael Wade of the Planning and Development Department told commissioners, “The basics of this proposal would reduce required parking minimums to 0,” and emphasized the change is “not removing parking spaces” but removing city‑required minimums.

Why it matters: parking minimums shape the cost and layout of new housing and commercial development. Commissioners, staff and public speakers framed the debate around housing affordability, effects on older and historic building reuse, curb and sidewalk safety, delivery and passenger loading, and the ability of transit to absorb travel demand if driving is discouraged.

Staff proposal, scope and intent

Planning staff described three linked elements: (1) a TDMP to get developers to plan for multimodal access and on‑site strategies to reduce drive‑alone trips; (2) elimination or reduction of off‑street parking minimums in the base code (staff repeatedly described this as reducing minimums “to 0” citywide, while preserving site‑specific Planned Development (PD) districts that…