Parking Consulting – Walker Consultants

North Carolina Eliminates Mandatory Minimum Parking Requirements

Meleny G — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:26:56 +0000

Charlotte, N.C. (WALKER CONSULTANTS) – A new North Carolina bill has eliminated “off-street parking minimums” statewide, and city and county governments will no longer have a say in parking requirements for new developments.

In an effort to reduce car dependence and give developers greater flexibility, House Bill 369 removes local government authority to require a minimum number of off-street parking spaces for most new developments. Beginning January 1, 2027, parking will mostly become a market-driven decision rather than a zoning requirement.

The bill, however, is much more than parking. Supporters of the bill suggest that eliminating these requirements can reduce unnecessary paving, lower development costs, create opportunities for additional housing, and lessen the impacts associated with oversized parking lots.

Requiring parking beyond what a development actually needs not only increases project construction costs but can consume land that could support additional housing or amenity and other community spaces that would benefit the overall project.

Although this legislation removes parking minimums, it does not eliminate the need for parking or the benefits of using a parking planner as developers are now left with the responsibility of determining how much parking a project truly needs based on land use, market demand, transportation usage, and overall, long-term operational needs. Not enough parking can create operational disadvantages, and too much parking can unnecessarily increase project costs.

“Deregulating parking minimums is a win for smarter development. It creates opportunities for more housing, better site design, and more efficient use of land. At the same time, it elevates the importance of data-driven parking planning to ensure each project delivers the right amount of parking—not too much and not too little,” Jim Corbett, Director of Planning at Walker Consultants, said.

North Carolina is one of several states rethinking how parking is regulated. Washington, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Montana have considered similar reforms, noting a growing conversation around how much parking new developments truly need.

With the elimination of parking minimums, the conversation is no longer about meeting arbitrary requirements—it is about determining the right amount of parking for project success. Walker is actively tracking these changes and helping clients confidently answer the question: How much parking do I really need?

Mass Timber Parking

Walker Consultants — Thu, 28 May 2026 21:57:48 +0000

Mass Timber Parking

Analyzing the cost and benefits of building structured parking out of wood

Parking structures are among the most common buildings we construct and among the most carbon-intensive. Their wide open interior spaces are, at the same time, both highly adaptable and very difficult to change. This study begins with that tension and asks how parking might be built differently today.

For decades, parking structures have been treated as background infrastructure—optimized for efficiency, built almost entirely of concrete, and rarely designed with a future beyond vehicle storage. How might these structures respond to climate and long-term adaptability while still meeting the demands of today?

Developed in collaboration with Truebeck, Holmes, Walker Consultants, and Stantec, this study imagines a mass timber parking structure—given today’s techniques, constraints, and market realities—and finds it a surprisingly viable alternative.

“As mobility evolves, parking structures may disappear, persist, or transform into something else entirely. The only certainty is that their role will change.”

Why Mass Timber

Mass timber adoption is already visible across housing, workplace, and civic buildings. Parking remains one of the few major building types still dominated by concrete. That makes it an opportunity. Stand-alone parking structures rely on repetitive grids, open floor plates, and modular systems. These characteristics align with prefabricated timber systems and allow for direct comparison with conventional construction.

Approach: Testing Against a Baseline

Rather than speculating on idealized futures, this study begins with a recently completed concrete parking structure and asks a direct question: what if this building were constructed in mass timber? Program, layout, and code assumptions are held constant. Structural systems, materials, and assemblies are varied. This approach isolates how design decisions affect carbon, cost, efficiency, durability, and adaptability.

Prototyping for Efficiency

Mass timber framing configurations were tested to balance structural depth, floor-to-floor height, and wood volume with the overall parking experience of a user. While a long span system maximizes parking flexibility and sight lines, it drives up the beam depth and floor-to-floor height. Including columns along one side of the drive aisle (“medium span”) provides a good overall balance of efficiency, adaptability, and sustainability. Both long span and medium span systems were evaluated across carbon, cost, construction duration, and spatial efficiency.

Carbon, Code and Cost

Embodied carbon can be reduced by up to 50%, driven primarily by replacing concrete slabs with timber. The building code (IBC) will allow up to six stories with 144,000 square feet per story for a total of approximately 2000 cars. Costs increase modestly in the range of 14–19%. The cost premium can be reduced by minimizing applied façade systems and expressing the wood structure as the visual signature of the building.

Performance Considerations

Parking structures must meet a consistent set of requirements regardless of material. As part of the study, each system was evaluated against core performance criteria including safety, durability, waterproofing, efficiency, and structural stability. The analysis asks whether mass timber can meet these expectations within current standards.

Safety

Fire resistance, EV charging risk, and code-compliant performance were treated as baseline requirements.

Durability

The study examined how exposed timber can weather, endure, and perform over time with limited maintenance.

Efficiency

Each system was measured for stall yield, span performance, and floor-to-floor height.

Stability

Lateral systems, seismic demands, vibration, and constructability were evaluated alongside overall structural performance.

Waterproofing

Drainage, traffic coatings, and edge protection were evaluated to protect the structure from moisture exposure.

Adaptability: Design for Change

With over 2 billion parking spaces in the United States, even a small shift in how these structures are designed has significant implications. This study explores adaptability as part of the typology itself. Mass timber’s kit-of-parts construction allows for disassembly, modification, and reuse, making future change more feasible than with post-tensioned concrete systems. As part of the study, floor-to-floor heights, ramp removal or reuse, utility flexibility, component disassembly, and two housing conversion scenarios were explored. Together, these tests frame the parking structure not as a fixed endpoint, but as a building that can evolve.

“Mass timber is not a speculative alternative. It is a technically viable structural system for contemporary parking structures in the United States. The study demonstrates that a free-standing mass timber parking structure could meet current performance requirements while reducing embodied carbon and improving long-term adaptability.”

Explore the Full Study

Sustainability Isn’t Just Environmental, It’s Operational. It’s Human.

Walker Consultants — Thu, 28 May 2026 21:44:32 +0000

Imagine this: you’re circling a parking garage for 10 minutes looking for an open space. You’re late for an important event, irritated, and now you’ve burned more fuel than you meant to before you’ve even turned off the ignition.

You don’t have to imagine it. You’ve lived it.

Moments like this are so common that they barely register anymore. But they should. What feels like a minor inconvenience is often a sign of a system that isn’t working as well as it could.

Some of the most meaningful sustainability gains come from reducing waste before it happens.

When people think about sustainability, they often picture what gets added to a building: solar panels, green roofs, EV charging stations and recycled materials. Those elements do matter. But some of the most meaningful environmental gains come from something less visible: reducing waste before it happens.

Sometimes sustainability looks like better movement. Less idling. Fewer wrong turns. Shorter wait times. Smoother arrivals. Less friction between people and the places they need to go.

Where Thoughtful System Design Makes a Difference

That’s where thoughtful system design comes in.

Tools like parking access and revenue control systems (PARCS), license plate recognition (LPR), and real-time stall detection can help drivers enter quickly, find spaces faster, and exit more efficiently. They improve convenience, but they also reduce circling, congestion, and unnecessary emissions.

Better parking flow is not just a user-experience improvement. It is also an operational and sustainability improvement.

Additionally, Parksmart is a leading certification for sustainable parking, promoting efficient, environmentally responsible parking facilities. And at Walker Consultants, we have 16 Parksmart Advisors who can help guide parking projects through certification by assessing sustainability.

At the VHC Outpatient Pavilion Garage, systems like these support a high-traffic healthcare environment where time matters. Clear wayfinding, streamlined entry, and efficient parking flow help reduce delays for patients, visitors, and staff while improving the overall experience around the facility.

The Bigger Idea Goes Beyond Parking

The bigger idea extends far beyond parking.

Across cities, sustainability is increasingly shaped by how well everyday systems function. The Seattle Zero Emissions Loading Zones initiative rethinks urban deliveries by shifting trips to e-cargo bikes. Our Transportation Equity Study for the City of Peoria focuses on improving access and mobility so communities can reach jobs, services, and opportunities more efficiently. Transit microgrids and multi-modal resiliency hubs connect transportation, energy, and public infrastructure to support cleaner, more reliable movement.

Reduce
Unnecessary movement

Use
Resources more wisely

Design
Systems that work better for people

What Sustainability Also Means

Because sustainability is not only about what we install. It is also about what we eliminate: wasted time, wasted energy, wasted motion, and avoidable frustration.

The most effective sustainability strategies are often the ones people never notice. They simply feel easier, faster, and better.

And over time, those invisible improvements can make a visible difference.