KC Development Code Refresh: Reimagining Our Code

UPDATE: On 11/5, the City Plan Commission recommended approval with conditions. There will be a public hearing before City Council on 3/31. Please visit the City Clerk's website for more updates.

Why Are We Analyzing Off-Street Parking?

Off-street parking is a frequent topic addressed during development project proposals with neighborhood and community groups. Just like many other cities across America, Kansas City has a variety of areas; from dense, downtown city streets to wide open plains in the northland. Each area has its own needs for transportation and parking, but right now there’s only one standard that applies across the board. Kansas City is now working to fix this aspect of the parking code.

What are the current concerns?

There are several common concerns we’ve heard related to off-street parking. Most of them fall into one of the following categories:

• Amount of Parking: Results from a recent citywide survey show most respondents find that they don’t have difficulty finding parking unless a special event is going on. In many cases, commercial and office lots are required to provide more parking than is typically needed for day-to-day business. This has caused many lots to sit underutilized.
• Different Districts, One Code: The current parking code applies the same standard to all areas of the city, even though the travel, land use, and building patterns in those places are different.
• Change of Use: When a business closes, the new tenant is expected to find additional off-street parking spaces based on the new use. For built-out places such as Midtown and along North Oak, the ability to expand parking is not feasible due to shallow lots and lack of available land. The process to get a variance around this is long, can be costly, and in some cases cause the property to become vacant if the owner isn’t able to meet the parking requirement.
• Impacts on Neighborhoods: A common concern from neighborhoods near commercial corridors is the potential for parking to spill over. This is particularly seen in older areas of the city, such as downtown, the Plaza and Brookside. But the majority of survey respondents (79%) say they do not currently have an issue with off-street parking in their neighborhoods.

What are we looking at?

We’re taking a closer look at the rules that dictate how many off-street parking spots a development must provide, what exceptions there should be for minimum parking requirements, and things like parking space sizes, pavement materials, etc. We’re considering making changes to help simplify off-street parking requirements and establish new parking minimums that provide more flexibility for business owners to provide the amount of parking they more realistically need. Our goal is to support thoughtful development that works for businesses and the surrounding community.

Here’s what’s being currently proposed:

• Developments in the “urban core” will no longer have a minimum off-street parking requirement
• Portions of the city outside of the urban core will have reduced parking minimums.
• Establishes parking maximums for all portions of the city. If additional parking is needed, those spaces will need to be “offset” through site improvements like bike racks, crosswalks, traffic calming, or other public improvements.
• Revised bike parking requirements that provide flexibility and adopt national best practices
• Allows businesses to count on-street parking towards parking minimums.
• Simplifies the parking code by removing redundancies and grouping similar topics together (was 18 sections, now just 7 sections.)
• Properties changing uses will benefit from the reduced or eliminated minimums.