The Parking Code Revision – Submission to City Council is available for review.  Staff submitted the ordinance on November 4, 2009.  The proposal was endorsed by the Columbus Development Commission at their September 24, 2009 Policy meeting. Prior endorsements were provided by the Columbus Board of Health, Transportation and Pedestrian Commission, Mayor Coleman’s Green Team, the Sierra Club and Consider Biking. This submission benefitted from comments from a variety of stakeholders throughout the process. The ordinance also includes substantive organizational changes including updated graphics and the creation of a general site development standards chapter, consolidating relevant elements from throughout the zoning code. The City’s commercial overlay code requirements include a number of provisions that are made redundant by the parking code update. This ordinance eliminates or modifies these sections accordingly.

Next Steps & Adoption Schedule

City Council will determine a schedule for consideration of the proposal submitted by staff. That information will be provided on this website as it becomes available.

General Project Description:

As Columbus seeks to grow in an efficient and sustainable manner, it is important to consider the role parking plays in the built environment. During the past year, a city staff team reviewed the parking section of the city’s zoning code (CC 3342).  The majority of this code section dates to the mid 1980s and has not benefited from a comprehensive review since that time. The code requires minimum levels of parking based on type and size of land uses.  While these requirements may be appropriate for some uses, in many cases they’ve proven to exceed actual demand.  The current code does not consider such things as bicycle parking, bio-retention or limitations on excessive parking. The objective for Columbus is to “right size” its approach to parking.  Excess parking provision is a particular issue of interest as it results in underutilization of land, higher development and maintenance costs, and an increase in impervious surface and stormwater runoff.  Significant amounts of land within the city are allocated to unused or underused parking.  In addition, the staff took into consideration Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s green initiatives as part of this work.

In order to develop proposed revisions, staff reviewed parking codes from many other communities and undertook in-field research of parking demand for key uses on high demand days (such as the day after Thanksgiving). This work was critical in guiding the revisions.  The result of the review is a proposed overhaul of the parking code as well as modifications to related code sections. Detailed information and highlights about the proposed changes can be found by selecting the “Documents” tab.