For the record, my name is Sharon Durkin.

I'm District Eight City Councilor, and I'm chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Planning Development and Transportation.

Today is joined uh June fourth, and the exact time is ten seventeen AM.

I apologize for starting late.

I wanted to make sure my co-sponsor was able to join us.

Uh, this hearing is being recorded.

It is also being live streamed at Boston.gov, backslash city-council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel Eight, RCN channel eighty two, and files channel nine sixty-four.

Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.plantev at Boston.gov, and will be made part of the public record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing.pac at Boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on docket O eight oh nine.

Order for a tax amendment to the Boston zoning code with respect to parking minimums for residential development.

Today I am joined by Councillor Henry Santana.

I know uh we will be joined by the council president shortly.

And I'm gonna give a brief opening statement.

Uh, we are gonna start with um Sarah Bronan, who is uh, so if we could get her queued up uh while I give my opening statement, that would be great.

Um, good morning.

Thank you to everyone who has joined us today for this discussion.

While I'm a I am the lead sponsor of this text amendment, my role today as chair is to facilitate an objective conversation.

We have the opportunity to hear from members of the public, experts, advocates, and stakeholders, and this hearing is intended to be a space for thoughtful discussion of all aspects of this proposal.

This conversation has been a long time coming.

Over the past year, we have heard from planners, housing experts, advocates, and residents about the role parking minimums play in housing production and affordability in Boston.

What has become increasingly clear is that this is a policy lever we cannot afford to overlook.

The median rent in Boston is now over $3,000 per month.

The median home price exceeds $700,000.

More than half of Boston renters are rent burdened.

We know families and young people are being priced out of our city.

This is coming on the heels of the smallest budget increase since 2010.

And missing middle housing is what we need to sustain our economic vitality long term.

Parking minimums add tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars to construction costs, consume valuable land on already constrained development parcels, and prevent housing typologies our city desperately needs, including ADUs and small-scale infill developments.

One concern I have heard is that this proposal will make it harder for residents to find parking.

Let me be clear, this amendment does not concern off-street parking.

It concerns off-street parking, not on street parking.

Off-street parking refers to parking spaces included within a development.

I know our residents are often challenged to find parking or resident parking spaces spots on our streets.

This has been an ongoing challenge in Boston, but it's a separate policy question, and one that we should work to begin to address.

This proposal does not ban parking or prevent developers from building parking.

If there is a demand for parking, developers will build it.

And in many cases, lenders require it as a condition of financing.

MAPC's research shows that off-street parking is overbuilt in Boston.

What this amendment does is remove outdated mandates that require cost that are requiring costly parking that we may not need.

The question before us is not whether this policy works.

There is a mountain of evidence supporting this and experts we're going to hear from shortly.

Hundreds of cities across the country and right here in the Commonwealth have eliminated parking minimums and made it easier to build housing.

We need to start listening to the facts.

And this is also not a French proposal.

This amendment has earned support from stakeholders across the housing and development community.

The Greater Boston Real Estate Board endorsed this proposal, and this is a quote from CEO Greg Vasel.

As the Massachusetts housing crisis worsens, we remain strongly opposed to any policy that restricts housing growth.

In a letter of support from NIOP, Massachusetts that we received in December, the Commercial Real Estate and Development Association wrote that mandatory parking minimums are an archaic, expensive aspect of the Boston zoning code.

Recently, we received a report from the Pioneer Institute calling for the elimination of parking minimums, stating that parking reform is low-hanging fruit because so many new apartment buildings have a visible oversupply of it.

This policy has the potential to address disproportionate impacts our housing crisis places on low-income residents.

It is an opportunity to stop requiring stop requiring excess asphalt and instead create more housing and green space and make our neighborhoods more vibrant.

And we must acknowledge the reality of the future.

Younger generations are driving less, and Boston needs the flexibility to build a more sustainable city.

This amendment has been carefully drafted and thoroughly reviewed.

Boston zoning code is one of the most complex in the country, and the zoning code experts, attorneys, and planning department have all reviewed this proposal to ensure it will function as intended.

I will read a statement from the planning department to that effect shortly.

We cannot continue to approach this neighborhood by neighborhood.

Doing so only deepens inequities across our city and limits the impact.

For this proposal to work, it must be implemented citywide.