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Development
Los Angeles

No Parking Zone: LA seeks to hide garages amid development boom

City Planning Commission wants to transform the city skyline and reduce vehicle parking requirements for new construction

The city of LA wants to rewrite the book on parking (Credit: iStock, Wikipedia)
The city of LA wants to rewrite the book on parking (Credit: iStock, Wikipedia)

Los Angeles city planners are pushing to drastically reduce the amount of above-grade parking in development projects amid a rapidly changing construction scene, particularly Downtown.

An advisory panel this week laid out a slew of design plans to hide parking structures from L.A.’s streetscape, according to Urbanize.

The advisory urged developers to build all parking below grade, and to reduce parking requirements through programs that include Transit-Oriented Communities. That city initiative encourages affordable housing construction by providing incentives to developers who build near transit hubs. It also reduces the number of required vehicle spaces a developer must build.

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The city has already started implementing some of the policies. In March, the Planning Commission approved GPI Companies’ 26-story tower planned in Hollywood with the condition the firm hide some parking from view.
The advisory also recommended that any new above-grade parking garages should have flat levels so they can be converted to other uses in the future.

The move builds on a 2016 Department of City Planning Advisory that specifically targeted parking in Downtown. Both actions are efforts to bring parking in line with a nearly decade-old city initiative emphasizing pedestrian-oriented construction that more thoughtfully considers a project’s surrounding community.

The city is expected to drastically reduce or even eliminate parking requirements for new development Downtown.

Last year, city officials asked Claridge Partners, which is building the 2 million-square-foot Angels Landing mixed-use project Downtown to the hundreds of planned parking spaces. [Urbanize] — Dennis Lynch