Climate justice activists call on Orlando to reform parking mandates for new development

A coalition of climate justice activists gathered at Orlando City Hall on Monday to call on city leaders to consider reforms to the city’s current policy on parking space mandates for new development.

Currently, the city has minimum parking requirements that activists say can deter new affordable housing development and drive up rental costs. Basically, the policy dictates how much parking space developers must account for in building new housing or for a business.

City leaders, at the urging of advocates with Orlando YIMBY, passed a limited measure in 2022 to get rid of parking space mandates for development in the downtown Central Business District, exclusively. But it didn’t apply across the city.

“One of the potential opportunities with this change is that some forms of housing that don’t need parking (micro units, shared housing, etc.) can potentially lower the overall cost of housing in the Central Business District and allow tenants to live a car-free lifestyle,” city spokesperson Ashley Papagni told Bungalower in a statement at the time. “Additionally, tenants may utilize the City’s parking facilities if they truly need to rent a space.”

Now, pointing to similar reform efforts in cities like Austin and San Diego, activists are asking the Orlando city commission to consider getting rid of parking minimums citywide.

They argue that this could, in part, remove red tape for building more affordable housing. They also argue that reforms could help encourage more environmentally friendly forms of transportation — like walking or use of public transit — and give small business owners more flexibility in their use of off-street parking spaces.

“This is kind of like the low-hanging fruit that can really help bring relief and be a part of the solution,” Giancarlo Rodriguez, a coordinator for the local chapter of the Sunrise Movement, told Orlando Weekly. Activists with the Sunrise Movement — a progressive climate justice group — took to City Hall on Monday along with activists from Youth Action Fund and fellow environmental group Ideas for US to ask city commissioners to move forward on reforms to Orlando’s current parking minimums policy.

Rodriguez said that activists have met with several city commissioners who have expressed support for reforms. The city planning division director, he added, also confirmed during the city commission’s last meeting that a reform ordinance is in the works.

“Our goal here today is just to make sure that they’re making that a priority,” Rodriguez explained. Essentially, keeping the pressure on.

Rodriguez was joined by about a dozen other, mostly younger activists. Sophia McKenzie, a 24-year-old finance lead for the local Sunrise Movement chapter, told Orlando Weekly that she was motivated to get involved based on her own difficulties with transportation up near the University of Central Florida.

She doesn’t have a car, and despite living near UCF, doesn’t have access to UCF’s off-campus, 13-route shuttle system, which serves 24 off-campus apartment complexes and Central Florida Research Park.

“They made a decision at UCF to not have a shuttle around my neighborhood, just because it’s better for them,” she argued. “They make more money by having us pay for parking spots than it is for them to shuttle us.”

But, even as someone without a car, she emphasized that her goal is to advocate for reforms that take into account Orlando’s current transportation infrastructure and parking needs.

A lot of people equate eliminating parking mandates with eliminating parking, McKenzie said, “but it’s actually just to give businesses the choice to do it.” To offer more flexibility and room for customization when added off-street parking isn’t necessary. Businesses will still need parking in order to attract customers, she said.

“Sunrise Orlando is proposing tangible local solutions to the housing affordability crisis and public transit needs we’re facing,” said Allison Minnerly, deputy executive director of Youth Action Fund, in a statement. “Young Orlandoans are showing up and speaking out — and we’re proud to follow their lead and will push for City Council to do the same.”

Orlando would be one of several large (and increasingly unaffordable) U.S. cities to eliminate or otherwise reform parking minimum mandates if city leaders move forward with the idea. According to the American Planning Association, cities across some 40 states were represented in the parking reform movement, as of 2022, including Gainesville in north Florida.

“These really hard choices between rent, hospital bills and a means of transportation are the choices that everyday Orlandoans have to make every single day while they live in a city that prioritizes cars over people,” said Sophia Nguyen, also organized with the Sunrise Movement, speaking outside City Hall before city commissioners’ scheduled meeting Monday afternoon. “On the same miles-long stretch of unused parking lots and strip malls that we see, you also see three, five people begging for their life, homeless.”

City leaders in places like Austin were motivated to reform parking mandates in part to help spur more affordable housing development. One study, conducted in 2017, found that adding garage parking increases the cost of a rental unit by 17 percent.

A lot of disruptions going on at the federal level, under the Trump administration, can be demotivating for those opposed to the administration’s policy agenda, admitted Rodriguez. “But when we come together here today in a fight to make a better Orlando and have Orlando be that example of what cities can do, despite all the craziness going on … if we can inspire others then we can build a better world.”

This post has been updated to identify Sophia Nguyen, who was initially described as simply an activist with the Sunrise Movement.

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This article appears in May 14-20, 2025.