Minimum Parking Requirements Zoning Amendment

At a glance

Based on auto-generated captions; figures are staff's, as spoken.

What: Zoning Ordinance Amendment ZA-2026-011, a petition by Mark Borenstein to cut the base off-street minimum from two spaces to one for single-, two-, three- and multi-family dwellings, citywide except overlay districts.
Where it stands: the Planning Board held its hearing on 2026-08-05 and voted 4-0 to recommend it favorably; the City Council received the report on 2026-09-08 and referred it to the Economic Development Committee.
Next: Economic Development Committee review; Planning staff plan to propose a broader parking overhaul (all uses, overlay districts) by the end of 2026.

Borenstein: Worcester requires far too much parking; the change codifies the relief the boards already give.
Staff (Michelle M. Smith): the Board's role is a non-binding recommendation to Council. Plans citing the need to cut parking include the hazard mitigation, housing production, Worcester Now, mobility and Green Worcester plans and a 2024 Research Bureau brief. About 58 percent of households have one or no vehicle, and almost 25 percent of renter households have none (2022 ACS).
Staff caution: the petition does not touch overlay districts, so the Commercial Corridors Overlay (for example the Shrewsbury Street area, which requires a percentage of base) would end up requiring about 60 percent more than the new base; inclusionary zoning reductions are percentages and would also fall (down to half a space per unit). The downtown district (BG-6) requires none and is unchanged.
History: one space per unit in 1963; two for single-family and one and a half for other housing in 1980; two per unit since 1991.
Residents Kevin Piala (Pleasant Street), Francesco Bavona (District 5) and Emma Morrison backed it; Bavona wants minimums eliminated entirely.
All members supported it. Carlos Rosende asked the Council to devote more resources to move faster.

About 21 minutes across 1 meeting (from transcript timestamps; approximate).

Meeting	Minutes
2026-08-05 - Planning Board	21

2026-09-08 - City Council - Planning Board report on the petition of Mark A. Borenstein (amend Zoning Ordinance Art. IV, Table 4.4 to merge the single/two/three-family and multi-family categories and require one off-street parking space per dwelling unit) referred to the Economic Development Committee 11-0 without discussion. Likely the same matter as the Planning Board's August hearing, but the minutes do not give the ZA number; unconfirmed.
2026-08-05 - Planning Board - Hearing and favorable recommendation to the City Council, 4-0, after staff flagged overlay-district and inclusionary zoning side effects; three residents supported.
2026-07-21 - City Council — Items 11a and 17e: Economic Development Committee Chairman's order asking the City Manager for a draft zoning amendment reducing minimum off-street parking requirements citywide (per testimony at the 2026-06-25 committee hearing) adopted; committee report on the Planning Board review of the City Manager's parking-minimums communication placed on file. May be a separate track from the ZA-2026-011 petition; the minutes do not say. A District 2 speaker, Kiara Munz, urged passage in public participation, saying a garage space costs about $30,000 and the cost lands on affordable housing.