North Carolina kicks parking rules to the curb in statewide reform

North Carolina housing advocates have tried for years to pass state-level zoning reform. They kept falling short.

Broad reforms met the same fate in the recently ended session – except one: parking reform. What started as a stormwater management bill became one of the most aggressive parking reforms in the country.

It passed with rare bipartisan force. A diverse coalition backed it, ranging from the Sierra Club to Americans for Prosperity to small farmers.

How it passed could serve as a model for coalition building.

Gov. Josh Stein signed the bill Monday. It eliminates most off-street parking requirements statewide for commercial and residential development, effective Jan. 1. The law follows a path other states and cities have increasingly taken to make new housing more affordable. California led the way, and other states and cities have followed.

The Parking Lot Reform and Modernization Act builds on what several North Carolina cities have already implemented. It bars local governments from requiring developers to build a minimum number of parking spaces, whether for commercial or residential projects. It also lets local governments offer incentives, including tax breaks, to developers who add stormwater controls. Coastal counties are exempt, a late addition addressing concerns about vacation-rental parking.

“This is a huge economic driver in addition to driving down the cost for surface park spaces for a home, which averages $5,000 to $10,000 per space, and a parking deck space that would be anywhere from $25,000 to $65,000,” State Rep. Donnie Loftis, a lead bill sponsor, said during a June 30 floor speech.

In a surge of bipartisan spirit, lawmakers also passed a full budget for the first time in more than 1,000 days.

Years in the making

House Bill 162 was built on a predecessor, House Bill 369, which passed the House unanimously in June 2025. That version stalled in the Senate. Lawmakers revived it this year, adding the coastal exemption to secure broader support.

North Carolina cities set the precedent for this reform. Raleigh eliminated its own parking minimums in March 2022, and Durham and Gastonia followed. Charlotte still enforces mandates, making it an outlier under the new law.

The House voted 111-2 on June 30 to concur with Senate changes, sending the bill to Stein’s desk. The Senate had approved it 44-1 a week earlier.

An unusual coalition

The bill drew support from a “strange bedfellows” mix of environmentalists, developers and housing advocates. Loftis said during his floor speech that the coalition included more than 130 groups, rattling off a list that spanned Realtors, developers, the apartment association, small business groups, “tree huggers” and “dirt pushers.”

Local governments have historically fought state preemption, but Loftis said they backed this bill, too.

“We had the spectrum from the far left to the far right and anything in between to get this bill across the finish line,” Ryan Carter, policy director for conservation group Catawba Riverkeeper and lead on the bill, told HousingWire TBD. “The broader coalition sealed the deal.”

His group spearheaded the effort because reducing pavement can also cut stormwater runoff and flooding.

“The worst thing you can do for the environment is build a parking lot,” Carter said.

Part of a larger push

A broader Democratic housing package introduced this spring sought to cap corporate ownership of single-family homes at 25 properties and allow residential construction in all commercially zoned areas.

House Bill 1056 stalled in the House Appropriations Committee after its April 28 referral. It carried 29 Democratic sponsors and no Republican support. Lawmakers split off the parking provision, a strategy that ultimately succeeded.

Supporters say the parking law could ease affordability pressure by lowering construction costs. Critics note it doesn’t mandate new housing – it only removes a regulatory obstacle.

Still, the near-unanimous votes mark a rare consensus in a Republican-controlled legislature that had resisted broader housing intervention. Backers say the bill proves that narrower, bipartisan reforms can succeed where sweeping packages tend to fail.