Winona may consider eliminating parking requirements

City of Winona staff tested the waters on eliminating parking minimums with the Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) in early September. Senior Planner Luke Sims said minimums often lead developers to overbuild parking, and he sought potential input on changes or elimination of parking minimums from the HPC, which would go to the Planning Commission and eventually the City Council for final action. HPC members were divided and requested more information before making a recommendation.

Multiple studies have identified a severe need for housing of all types in Winona, and the city’s comprehensive plan notes that Winona’s rental vacancy rate is far below a healthy level. To meet the housing demand, one avenue could be reducing parking requirements, which add costs and take up space where housing could go. With limited land in Winona, particularly downtown, the current requirement for two off-street parking spaces per rental unit can often be a barrier to developing housing. Winona’s comprehensive plan has goals to consider reducing or eliminating parking minimums downtown to allow more housing development, allow developers to prove the amount of parking their project needs is less than the minimum, and evaluate public parking usage for possible redevelopment.

In recent years, Winona has slowly been loosening parking requirements. Previously, it relaxed rules downtown to allow downtown apartment buildings to forgo parking for their first six units, and after that, they need to provide two parking spots within 300 feet of the building. Earlier this year, the city also reduced parking minimums for one-bedroom and studio apartments to only one parking stall and allowed half of adjacent on-street parking to count toward parking requirements for all new apartments.

At the HPC’s meeting on September 9, Sims said that multiple studies have found that Winona’s public parking infrastructure is underutilized. Particularly downtown from Huff Street on the West and Franklin Street on the East and Fifth Street up to the Mississippi River, Sims said the city accounted for all parking stalls’ use within 150, 300, and 450 feet of destinations at mid-morning, midday, and evening. While some areas hit the city’s 90% utilization goals during peak midway hours, usage wanes in the evening. Sims said while the city largely eliminated parking minimums downtown in 2017, there are still some areas and cases where it applies. He added that according to the city’s data, the parking minimums do lead to better parking utilization. “The Institute of Transportation Engineers in recent years has also recognized that [parking minimums] are not a tool that is being effective and actually creates an oversupply of parking in communities,” Sims said, adding that Winona is joining many communities that have been doing studies since the 1990s to demonstrate this.

Despite the overall removal of parking minimums downtown, Sims noted that downtown has actually gained roughly 700 parking spaces still since the city’s 2018 parking study, which equates to roughly four and a half city blocks worth of space for parking. “The parking minimum may not be wholly accurate to the actual land use, but as people build a more popular destination or as they continue to build, parking has a value and it can serve as an amenity for a community,” Sims said. “So when you remove parking minimums, people do still build parking.” There’s a conversation to be had, Sims said, about whether the city should continue enforcing parking minimums when studies have found they are not particularly effective. He noted that multiple buildings’ ability to be redeveloped and add apartments downtown is hampered because of parking minimums.

Sims asked the HPC to consider advising the Planning Commission on removing parking minimums only in historic districts or across the board, as well as on potential parking maximums and whether to institute conditional use permits for standalone parking lots when there’s a demonstrated need for it.

Multiple HPC members were interested in the changes and favored eliminating parking minimums across the board. HPC member Kendall Larson was more hesitant, stating, “When I first moved here, I lived in a downtown apartment and did not have allocated parking. I had to park in a city lot, which was great, until it got towed because … of the snow,” Larson said. She added, “I didn't have a direct parking spot, and that was frustrating. And I think people still do rely on cars and so I'm not advocating for the maximum number, but I think I’d like more information.”

The HPC voted unanimously for staff to bring back more information on the options before making a recommendation in the future. After the HPC, Sims said the topic would then go to the Planning Commission, and he noted that the City Council will also touch on similar issues at an upcoming work session in the coming weeks.

Winona may consider eliminating parking requirements

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