Lakewood asks for state support to implement new parking minimums as housing-supply trade-offs surface

Councilmember Pearson outlined the city's need for help implementing statewide parking minimums enacted by recent state legislation (referred to in the meeting as SB 5184). Pearson said the law creates both residential and commercial parking standards and that complying with regulation, performing required studies for exemptions, and managing enforcement will strain municipal resources.

"The ultimate request here is that we're looking for your guys' support in creating a formula based program that would allow distribution of funding to cities to support compliance with the state parking mandates," Pearson said.

Councilmember Branstetter described Lakewood's varied street widths and neighborhoods and said that applying the same standards everywhere is problematic; he emphasized that the law allows for location-specific exemptions but obtaining those exemptions requires expensive consultant studies.

A state representative said exemptions are a city choice and argued that using scarce state dollars to fund broad exemptions across jurisdictions would undercut the law's housing-supply objective, which aims to reduce costs and increase housing. The representative urged cities to use local funding choices for exemptions while continuing to pursue housing supply increases.

The discussion broadened to transit needs and local priorities (Pierce Transit ballot planning for expanded service was mentioned) and to other community concerns raised later in the meeting.

Next steps: Lakewood asked legislators to consider a formula-based grant program or other funding to help cities comply; legislators signaled skepticism about large statewide grant programs for exemptions but said they would listen to concrete funding proposals.