The Miami Parking Debate

There are few public issues in Miami more visible and divisive than parking.

On a broad scale, the city is studded with parking garages of all shapes and sizes, vast surface lots and now even self-parking robots, all meant to serve the nearly 2 million registered vehicles in Miami-Dade County.

Even so, many of Miami’s average Joes and Janes find themselves circling the block around their favorite restaurant, or waiting for a space to open on the street near their friend’s apartment.

But behind the scenes, a seismic shift among some developers and public officials is underway as they try to distance themselves from Miami’s notorious car-dependency in favor of a more urban and walkable city.

Legislation

The single largest factor dictating development rules for parking is zoning.

For residential projects, Miami zoning rules require a minimum of 1.5 parking spots per residence. On a small scale for single-family homes or townhouse projects, that minimum might seem small. For a development aiming at more than 100 units, however, it quickly compounds.

But recent years have seen legislators push through caveats and exemptions to the zoning code aimed at helping foster greater ridership for public transit and lessening the pressure on developers to build parking.

In October, city commissioners passed an amendment to the code that allowed developers of any new building near a transit corridor and sized under 10,000 square feet to decide how much parking they want, if any at all.

There’s also a buffer zone of 500 feet between those developments and any single-family residence, meant to prevent parking spillover in surrounding neighborhoods.

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