Shoreline abolishes parking mandates
The Shoreline council voted to delete the city's "arbitrary" parking mandates, placing the onus on property owners to decide how much pavement they need
The Shoreline city council abolished parking mandates at the August 11th meeting, joining Bothell, Spokane, Port Townsend, Bellingham, and Bremerton in scrapping the “arbitrary” rules.
Last winter, the council gave city staff and the planning commission six months to eliminate vehicle parking minimums citywide in Shoreline. The council voted 6-to-0 to wipe parking mandates from the city’s development code.
In his 2025 State of the City Speech, Mayor Chris Roberts spoke in support of Shoreline becoming one of the first cities in the state to abolish parking mandates. “We know that parking is one of the largest costs associated with development, up to $60,000 a space. These costs are reflected in increased costs of rent and the amount we pay for goods and services. These parking mandates also have environmental and community impacts, as they increase the amount of impervious surface, increase the number of heat islands, and make walking less pleasurable,” he said.
According to the city, parking mandates make housing more expensive by increasing housing construction costs. When developers have to build more parking than they need, it leads to fewer homes being built, higher home prices, and escalating rents.
Too much parking means too much pavement, leading to fewer trees and vegetation, increased heat island effects, and more stormwater runoff, said the city.
“I’m certainly supportive of this,” Councilmember Keith Scully said previously. “I sort of evolved from [my] Planning Commission days when I was supporting at least some parking minimums to now... because we want affordable housing and reduced hardscape, and trees. And something's gotta give… if you're mandating all those things. And parking is the obvious choice,” he said.
Deputy Mayor Laura Mork supported the measure and said abolishing parking mandates “puts the onus on the people who are building the units… whether it's multifamily, single-family, commercial, to understand what is needed. And so the onus is on them…”
Councilmember John Ramsdell was absent from the meeting, but at a recent meeting, he spoke in favor of abolishing parking mandates. "I'm very much in support of eliminating parking minimums. They let the market determine… what level of parking is going to be attractive for home buyers or residents or developers in the community, who are providing… much-needed housing". He added, "having parking minimums is just going to encourage more urban sprawl and more use of our cars. So I'm very much in favor of this.”
The Shoreline Planning Commission recommended abolishing parking mandates and told the council, "elimination of this arbitrary set of standards will assist with the City’s competing goals by reallocating land from the car-centric sprawling parking lots to areas that can be used to retain trees, provide housing, protect critical areas, reduce stormwater runoff, and even reduce heat islands.”