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 already set their own rules); and (3) updated parking‑design rules (pedestrian pathways, limits on curb cuts, bicycle parking updates and drainage safeguards).

Wade said the TDMP would be implemented during site plan review and would not add a new approval step. He described the TDMP as a menu of physical and programmatic strategies a development team could choose to meet performance expectations. On design, Wade summarized, staff wants “to emphasize the quality of the parking lots that we build over the quantity.”

Commissioner questions and staff clarifications

Commissioners pressed staff on several recurring concerns: impacts on historic and small‑scale buildings; how to treat areas near rail or high‑frequency bus corridors; whether certain intensive uses (bars, restaurants, commercial amusement, hotels, large multifamily) should retain minimums; and how to make TDMPs practicable rather than an open‑ended burden.

On historic buildings and smaller storefronts, Wade said earlier ZOAC frameworks included exemptions by age or square footage (a previously discussed “first 5,000 square feet” or a pre‑1967 cutoff), but that the current draft removes the blanket minimums and leaves incentives rather than hard protections. Commissioner Kingston and others pushed staff to consider square‑foot thresholds or PD‑level protections to avoid demolishing small, older commercial buildings for parking.

On corridors and transit, staff explained a legal and operational difficulty of tying parking minima to separate plan documents such as the thoroughfare plan; that is, code in Article 4 cannot be automatically keyed to another plan that has its own amendment process. Staff said corridor‑based approaches can be implemented through small‑area or authorized‑hearing processes, but warned those approaches take additional time.

Loading, enforcement and on‑street spillover

Multiple commissioners and speakers pressed staff about off‑street loading and about how overflow on‑street parking would be handled. Scott Walton, assistant director of Transportation and Public Works, summarized enforcement steps for resident parking complaints and explained the department’s typical investigation protocol: “When we receive those, it actually goes to a transportation engineer. They go out, minimum of 3 times, during the hours that it's reported that it's a problem.”

Staff acknowledged the current code lacks specific off‑street loading requirements for many multifamily projects and said the proposed language would require applicants to show loading on site plans and would elevate discussion of loading earlier in design review. Commissioners asked for clearer, enforceable requirements rather than the current practice of post‑permit mitigation.

Public comment: supporters and opponents

Speakers were roughly split between advocates who said eliminating or reducing parking minimums would lower development costs and remove an obstacle to reuse of older buildings and opponents who warned of spillover parking, threats to single‑family neighborhoods and inadequate public transit in many parts of the city.

Supporters included neighborhood and transportation advocates who argued parking minimums inflate housing costs and create large expanses of underused paved land. Nate Henby of Dallas Neighbors for Housing and the Dallas Bike Coalition told commissioners, “I support the reduction of all off‑street parking minimums to none because our current parking mandates are outdated and actively harm our city's affordability, sustainability, and mobility goals.” Other speakers said removing minimums would allow small businesses to open in existing buildings and enable denser housing.

Opponents — including residents from areas with limited transit — urged a more phased or geographically targeted approach. Speakers raised concerns about safety, access for older residents or people with disabilities, and the practical reality that many parts of Dallas have few transit options. Several residents asked for explicit protections for historic districts and conservation areas.

Commission action and next steps

After discussion, the commission voted to ask staff to draft ordinance language that follows a set of CPC priorities and to leave the public hearing open. The commission then held the matter under advisement and set a follow‑up commission hearing for Feb. 13, 2025, to consider the drafted code language and continuing public comment.

Commissioner Bill Housewright, who circulated a set of proposed changes at the meeting and moved that staff draft text reflecting those directions, said in debate, “My motion eliminated TDMPs. Clearly, I don't like TDMPs,” reflecting a point of disagreement among commissioners about the role of a TDMP. Staff said they would incorporate the CPC direction into a draft ordinance and post the revised draft for public review ahead of the Feb. 13 hearing.

Ending

The commission’s request for a staff‑drafted ordinance and the decision to keep the public hearing open means the next weeks will be a detailed policy and drafting phase, not a final decision. Developers, neighborhood groups and transit advocates will have additional opportunities to respond to the specific language staff prepares for the Feb. 13 meeting.