Back in April, Guilford County lowered the number of parking spaces developers had to provide for new apartments and townhomes. Now the county is getting ready to take those minimums off the books altogether.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, Nov. 18, on a proposal to remove minimum off-street parking requirements from the county’s Unified Development Ordinance.
State law requires the commissioners to hold a public hearing before changing the county’s development ordinance. Residents can weigh in on the proposed edits Wednesday, but even if the board leaves the old parking rules on the books, the county will lose the authority to enforce those minimums on Jan. 1.
The change will reach beyond apartments and townhomes and cover commercial and other development governed by the county’s zoning rules.
This time, the change is coming from Raleigh: Under House Bill 162, which became law this summer, local governments in Guilford County will lose the authority to require a minimum number of off-street spaces for a development beginning Jan. 1, 2027.
The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at the High Point Municipal Building at 211 S. Hamilton St. The board moved the meeting up a day from its usual Thursday slot because several commissioners are attending the N.C. Association of County Commissioners’ Legislative Goals Conference in Wake County on Nov. 19 and 20.
Here’s what the change looks like in practice. Under the rules commissioners adopted in April, a development with 100 two-bedroom apartments would have a minimum of 150 spaces at the rate of 1.5 spaces per unit.
Starting in January, however, the county could no longer use that rule to require those 150 spaces. The developer could still build 150 spaces – or more, if that’s what it takes to attract tenants.
And that raises a question for anyone who’s ever come home late and circled an apartment complex looking for a spot: How many spaces will builders actually put in when they alone get to make that call?
The answer could vary quite a bit from one development to the next. An apartment complex near a bus route may have different parking needs than one where nearly everybody drives to work.
And if a builder puts in fewer spaces, that can leave room for more housing or green space. If the lot fills up every night, nearby streets may end up absorbing some of the overflow.
Wednesday’s vote deals with the county’s ordinance. Greensboro and High Point have their own development rules, and the state law applies to those cities as well.
The Guilford County Planning Board voted 5–0 on Oct. 14 to recommend the change. According to the county’s staff summary, no public comments were received during that review.
In downtown Greensboro, there’s been a lot of debate about parking too. Lately, that discussion has been about what happens to the spaces people already use.
As the Rhino Times reported earlier this year, the city began charging for weekday parking in several previously free lots near South Elm Street, then made its surface lots and on-street spaces free after 5 p.m. on weekdays following complaints about downtown parking.
The privately owned Davie Street deck also came down to make way for a planned 171-unit apartment development.
Starting in January, that same state law will limit what Greensboro can require of future projects downtown. Developers will decide how much parking to build, and the city will still have to figure out how to manage the public spaces people turn to when those lots fill up
This is good news. For years government required ridiculously high numbers of parking spaces especially for commercial developments. Anyone who frequents big box stores sees an ocean of unnecessary pavement. Those spaces are used maybe once a year in the days before Christmas. The old rules required excess impervious pavement and runoff, sprawling developments, pavement generating heat, added development costs and waste of natural resources such as oil to make asphalt. This rule change is well past due.