ULI SF provided technical assistance to progress the City of San Jose in moving toward a more walkable and climate-friendly city for its residents and visitors. This month, the San Jose City Council unanimously supported a staff proposal to move towards eliminating parking minimums citywide, a recommendation made by a ULI SF Technical Assistance Panel (TAP).

In 2019, ULI SF convened a TAP with the City of San Jose, local businesses, public and quasi-public agencies, developers, and local advocates and non-governmental organizations to consider three questions posed by the city:

1. The City of San José would like to reduce parking costs to developers, especially for affordable housing, and seeks to understand how this might impact the financing of development projects.
2. How should the city’s zoning code be modernized and enhanced to achieve its goals? and
3. What are the on-the-ground impacts of these changes?

Two key takeaways from the TAP were  the need for policies that encourage “just right” parking, which included eliminating parking minimums, and acknowledge that one size does not fit all and thus supporting the City’s climate goals. The full report published in January 2020 is available here.