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Removing parking requirements for new buildings could help .

There is a , according to a recent study by the Colorado State Demography Office.

Nearly in the state spend over one-third of their pretax income on rent or mortgage payments. That means they pay more on housing, as a percentage of their income, .

The cost of providing parking—borne by developers and passed on to residents—helps push prices up. Parking minimums may be or . Some renters prefer apartments that come with dedicated parking.

Structured parking can cost as much as , according to Denver's Community Planning and Development office. Off-street surface parking, though cheaper to construct, requires dedicating valuable urban land to parking lots.

We are and who worked with data scientists at the to model how parking requirements affect the development of multifamily residential housing in the city and county of Denver.

Cutting parking boosts construction

We found that 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. We published our findings as a white paper with the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute in July 2025.

In August 2025, the .

Denver followed the lead of other cities such as , , and that have all recently abolished parking minimums.

In 2024, the Colorado legislature also in order to increase housing supply. However, that effort has been challenged in court on the grounds that the . This legal tug-of-war underscores the importance of Denver's decision.

Parking can be expensive

Before the policy change, market-rate apartments in Denver were required by law to provide as many as . In a 200-unit building, parking could add millions of dollars to the developer's costs.

Parking requirements are often determined by a formula. Based in part on an outdated view that modern cities should be car-oriented, cities around the country, including Denver, that created legal requirements for the number of parking spaces that new housing projects must include.

Land is expensive in high-demand cities like Denver. Dedicating part of a building's footprint to parking imposes both a direct cost—because developers must pay to build the parking—and an indirect cost, because it leaves less space for housing. These development costs are passed along to renters and owners, decreasing affordability.

Reducing parking requirements lets developers build only the parking spaces that residents want or need.

Eliminating parking minimums

We built a simulator that estimates expected to be built in multifamily, market-rate rental developments in Denver in one year. It then allows for a comparison of possible outcomes based on changing policy assumptions.

Our predictions factor in:

• Building size and allowable unit counts for parcels.
• The type of development and corresponding number of units that are likely to be financially feasible.
• The probability that parcels might actually be developed in the future is based on a statistical analysis of historical Denver development data.

Following guidelines developed by the , we modeled 75 scenarios. They included five potential parking policies tested across five economic environments and three sets of assumptions for developer-driven parking inclusion.

Changes would bring hundreds of housing units

Our prediction that eliminating parking mandates in Denver could result in approximately 460 additional multifamily units per year is based on three assumptions:

1. Somewhat unfavorable economic conditions, including high interest rates and relatively low margins for developers.
2. Elimination of all regulatory parking mandates.
3. Voluntary construction of 0.5 spaces per unit near light rail and 1.0 spaces per unit away from light rail.

We find that eliminating parking minimums creates . Developers will still build parking where needed or demanded by city residents.

Eliminating mandatory parking requirements offers several additional benefits.

The city will save labor costs associated with enforcing parking requirements, reducing housing costs.

The policy change for more economically productive uses and for desired civic infrastructure such as sidewalks or green space. Developers freed from building parking are also more likely to invest in .

Removing parking minimums can to use small undeveloped or underdeveloped parcels for "" forms of housing, such as duplexes or triplexes. These forms of housing provide "gentle density," meaning they do not significantly alter neighborhoods but still make them more affordable for lower- and middle-income people and increase the city's overall housing supply. It can also allow for the adaptive reuse of historic buildings that may have been built before the city required on-site parking.

And finally, eliminating a requirement for surplus parking spaces , which results in more walkable cities and more connected neighborhoods.

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