I generally don't like to post screenshots of text, but someone posted this in our local Strong Towns group and it was too good not to share here.

Always good!!! 🎄

Seattle city planners hired a consultant to analyze feasibility of downtown housing typologies & given the sky high fees to build, hard costs & parking costs, every model was rated “infeasible” Highrise Res: $605k/unit Mixed use: $710k/unit Mass timber: $605k/unit Office to Res: $640k/unit

The Trump administration says it will dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a cornerstone for American climate and weather science. I went on NPR today to explain what this could mean for climate research. Listen here:

"WA’s climate ambitions hang on poles and wires. Electric transmission lines make it possible to carry cheap, efficient, reliable power from solar fields in CA or wind farms in MT to the people in Washington who rely on it every day" #WALeg @Sightline.org www.sightline.org/2025/12/18/h...

Above & beyond in Seattle tonight 🚀 The city is EXCEEDING state mandates (!!): expanding density bonuses & making mid-rise affordable housing feasible in more neighborhoods. PLUS: removing parking mandates near frequent transit & allowing neighborhood-scale businesses on ALL lots! 🏆🏆🏆

Worth a read: Pete Hegseth Is Doing Something Even Worse Than Breaking the Law www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/o...

Single stair 🤝 parking reform Connecticut’s now a national leader in parking flexibility, if the upcoming single stair codes are modernized we’ll have a recipe for infill housing on those hard-to-build lots in our towns and cities

Exciting!

Sluggish transmission projects inflate electricity bills and strand renewable energy. @Sightline.org www.sightline.org/2025/11/20/t...

“Parking adds both construction cost and opportunity cost due to land value being tied up in parking rather than housing. Those expenses get passed on to residents (renters or buyers)….” Fact check: true. ggwash.org/view/101633/...

Like King Midas discovering he couldn’t eat golden food, we’re discovering that car-dependent places can’t sustain the human activities they were meant to enable www.fastcompany.com/91443440/ame... #cars #parking #sports

Interesting! Surprise link to our work on #parking: a convincing message in favor of flexible parking is that excessive parking makes for ugly, paved places—strip-mall development eroding main streets/charming downtowns. (Mandates can also make for ugly buildings. *That don’t “fit in”! Just sayin)

Made this whole video because we want to get a fit off while drinking a latte

Julie Z. Weil at @washingtonpost.com wants to hear from millennial & Gen Z homeowners out there about home ownership -- want to talk? If you're interested in a Washington Post story about the youngest homebuyers, email: [email protected] Thanks so much!

Exciting!!!! Congrats CT folks!!

Tomorrow is #BlackFridayParking! Join us in highlighting why costly mandatory parking requirements are unnecessary by showcasing all the excess parking on the busiest shopping day of the year. Take some pics and post them with the #BlackFridayParking tag! parkingreform.org/2025/11/19/b...

Excited to be part of this conversation on parking reform and how cities can build abundance. Join us on December 8. Sign up: luma.com/eab3fc7r

“The village area was rezoned to a ‘neighborhood business district,’ a designation that has no minimum parking space requirements.” The builder “said it would not be financially feasible to redevelop & modernize such older, urban pockets if parking ratios were as strict as in newer suburban areas.”

With Connecticut poised to modernize its parking policies, this from @sightline.org is so important. Parking flexibility isn’t just for cities, it’s great for small towns!!! www.sightline.org/2024/09/04/t...

And if you're in the Seattle area, you can join us at one of our meetups every Thursday in Redmond where we chat about everything urbanism. We hope to see you there! www.meetup.com/eastside-urb...

Word

'Allowing a single stairway would save space and allow for more multi-bedroom, family-friendly units, said Mike Eliason, a Seattle-based architect and author of Building for People' @patrickcsisson.bsky.social on what could be in store for los angeles with SB-79 www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Could the Seattle mayoral election go to a recount? And if so, how would it work? I answer those questions here:

Go, #Bellingham!

Korbel Professor @schaveznorgaard.bsky.social on a new co-authored study about minimum parking requirements: “We do think it, hopefully, elevated the debate so that it was a data-driven conversation." "In Denver, simulator-run study says parking rule change could boost home construction by 12.5%"

Happy Election Day, y'all! You're invited to join our debrief on the 2025 elections on Nov 10 @ 6 pm ET! We'll talk this year's results and what's on our radar for 2026. www.mobilize.us/leadlocally/...

Overbuilt parking wastes money and space that communities can put to use for better things than empty asphalt! More homes, save trees, more local business investment.

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Interested in parking reform? Check this out - I'll be talking about Hartford (& a tiny bit about @zoningatlas.bsky.social's parking features):

Same in Spokane. With a supermajority on council and a willing mayor, we have to run as fast as possible on issues like safe streets, transit, and urban infill.

Illinois will becoming the 5th state to eliminate local parking requirements for new development projects near transit, after: —California (assembly bill 2097, 2022) —Colorado (house bill 24–1304, 2024) —Oregon (Land Conservation and Development Commission, 2022) —Washington (house bill 1491, 2025)

Your city has eliminated parking minimums. Now what? Hear from planners and community leaders from across the U.S. share their experiences navigating next steps after major parking reforms. Join the conversation on Nov. 18 ucla.zoom.us/meeting... #UCLATransportation100

Congratulations to IL on becoming the third state to pass state level Parking Reform in 2025! We’ve still got CT & NC on the clock which would get us to 5 in one year! Amazing work by @parkingreform.org & many others 🙌🙌

July 2025 - "SB 5184, which was adopted by a wide majority in both houses, exempts all homes smaller than 1,200 square feet from parking mandates. “The average new apartment in the United States is 904 square feet, and even the typical two-bedroom averages only 1,097 square feet."

A mini-symposium on parking — without the commute. Join us for a virtual panel series on Nov. 18 and connect with parking reform champions from across the country. View the session schedule and register here www.its.ucla.edu/tri... #UCLATransportation100

Parking mandates are one of those 1950s planning psuedo-sciences that we're still dealing with, to no one's benefit. crcmich.org/dennis_20240...

Minneapolis built more housing than any other major Midwest city & it’s not a mystery why. They allowed modest density housing types city-wide, cut regressive parking mandates, and made it easier to build apartments near transit. The results: more homes + slowed rent growth.

A new research report from Hawaiʻi Appleseed reveals that parking mandates are adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of construction of new homes on Oʻahu. #ParkingMandates #Parking #Affordability #HousingCosts #HousingCrisis #AffordableHousing #Honolulu hiappleseed.org/press-releas...

MLUPA 4/5: Some of the 14 options cities can choose from to boost supply: ✅Allow Duplexes by right ✅Allow Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) ✅Eliminate or reduce off-street Parking requirements ✅Reduce Lot Sizes or Setbacks The goal is simple: remove policy barriers to building the homes Montana needs.

I had a chance to tour the Solis passive house apartment building in Seattle this past weekend. It's interesting as a #passivhaus in the middle of Capitol Hill, with a view to another green building icon, the Bullitt Centre >> The passive part is great, but what caught my eye was the stair. 🧵

Parking flexibility—it works! Time to bring this common-sense policy to Connecticut theconversation.com/denver-study...

Off-street Parking in 15 US Cities https://findingspress.org/article/145256-off-street-parking-in-15-us-cities

"If your projects are designed to move more cars, what you’ll get is more cars. (But) if you take the emphasis away from moving more cars, you can move more people — and build better neighbourhoods, too." www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

“You can win elections by tacking to the middle; lots of people have. But you can also win elections by staking a moral position and convincing people to agree with you. You can earn support by demonstrating what is important to you instead of just being determined to nod along with what you hear.”

“We found that cutting minimum-parking requirements would likely boost housing construction in #Denver by about 12.5%, translating into roughly 460 more homes per year…. This is a surprisingly high-impact result for a single, relatively simple policy change.”

Fun fact about off street parking requirements: most people with garages use them for storage and do not park their cars in them.

Inflexible mandates are wasteful! Towns are seeing they CAN HAVE NICE THINGS (more homes 🏘️, trees!🌳) with flexibility!!!

“States as diverse as Washington, New Hampshire, Texas, and Montana each passed laws to reform their onerous local parking mandates this year ... While the details differ, the story is the same: Democratic and Republican, rural and suburban states are reforming their outdated parking regulations.”