Goodbye to the mandatory garage: Big city architecture bypasses personal parking 

Spanish cities have typically required parking spaces for each home as each family is expected to have at least one car, although young people are increasingly less likely to own a vehicle. Barcelona’s Metropolitan Area (AMB) has just eliminated this regulation for new apartments being constructed in downtown, depending on their proximity to public transportation.

The initiative reflects a European trend: cities such as London, Amsterdam, and Oslo already build garage-free homes with experts believing that the measure can discourage the use of cars, promote sustainable mobility, and even make housing cheaper. However, it should go hand in hand with more public transportation, pedestrian mobility, and bike lanes, as well as an increase in the price of street parking to prevent it from becoming an alternative.

“Until now, urban planning has forecasted a high number of parking spaces, both in buildings and on streets, and this modification changes that, limiting the maximum spaces or their minimum requirement to discourage the use of cars. It is a striking proposal,” says Ignacio Pemán, from the European Council of Urban Planners (ECTP-CEU).

Mikael Colville-Andersen, an expert in sustainable mobility, adds: “Barcelona is not an isolated case. There is a European trend that moves away from the old 20th-century idea that every new residential building must automatically have a certain number of parking spaces. In areas with good public transportation in London, the departure point is urban development projects without parking spaces, and maximum limits are applied instead of minimum ones.”

In well-connected centers in certain pioneering cities, new buildings are banned from having garages while in less stressed areas, the measure is not necessarily applied. “Oslo follows a very similar strategy: the supply of parking spaces is drastically reduced as you move towards downtown and areas with good public transport connections,” Colville-Andersen says.

“Amsterdam has eliminated minimum parking space requirements in many central, well-connected areas, and Helsinki allows developers to decide how many spaces are needed instead of being obliged to build them. Paris has also stopped requiring a minimum number in many cases,” Colville-Andersen adds.

Zurich goes further and eliminates one on-street parking space for every one built in a home, while in Tokyo residents need to prove they have a private parking lot before buying a car. The AMB acknowledges that its legislation is based on that adopted in Amsterdam, Lisbon, London, and Zurich.

There are even initiatives in the U.S., a car-centric country, as José María Ezquiaga, National Urban Planning Prize-winner, points out: “California abolished the minimum parking obligation throughout the state within 800 meters of public transport stations in 2023. What happened in Barcelona is not extreme,” he says.

The architect is in favor of removing the mandatory minimum parking per home, but not preventing it by law: “The car is inefficient when it comes to commuting to work, something which can be reduced by removing parking spaces in workplaces, but it is still a standard facility for many homes. Those who do not have a car take advantage of parking spaces as a storage room — to store bicycles or surfboards — as is being done in many parts of Europe.”

No minimum in Barcelona

The new Catalan regulations, which apply in 28 municipalities, dictate that new social housing blocks in the central area can either have no single parking space or a maximum of one space per flat; in private housing, the minimum will be 0.25 spaces or rather one for every four flats, while the maximum may reach up to two in the largest flats.

“For decades, the regulation presupposed a much greater dependence on the car than we now have, as there are excessive parking spaces in areas with an excellent public transport network. The report points out that with social housing, these spaces are being left empty,” says Rosina Vinyes Ballbé, architect and member of the board of the Association of Urban Architects of Catalonia (AAUC).

Zaida Muxí, professor of urban planning in Monterrey and Barcelona, adds: “Limiting the supply of cars lowers demand. The central area of Barcelona has very good public transport, so not requiring the construction of garages is a good thing. At least impose a maximum. There are other cities that have done it and it is working.”

Ecologist Salvador Rueda, creator of Barcelona’s eco-friendly superblocks, also believes that the change is positive. “It used to make sense to require parking in homes to avoid public spaces being filled. But this generates traffic because it encourages people to drive. Young people are also less likely to own a car. They may either opt for car sharing or renting.”

Other Spanish cities continue to require the construction of a parking space for residents in new buildings — even in subsidized housing. In Zaragoza, the requirement stipulates 0.5 to two spaces per floor; in Málaga, one to 1.5; in Valencia, one. Basque cities are governed by the regional land law, with a minimum of 1.1.

Madrid — which has not responded to EL PAÍS for comment — has at least 1.5 spaces for every 100 square meters built, as María Eugenia del Río, secretary of the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), explains: “The regional Líder law proposes more flexible urban planning so that if you can prove that parking spaces are not needed in an area, the city councils will allow you not to build them,” she says. The capital’s City Council is already allowing exemptions in downtown.

An exception to the rule

Valladolid is an exception: in 2016, it eliminated the requirement for residential blocks to have garages. Now developers can decide whether or not to build underground parking depending on demand. The City Council put forward the idea of creating car-free neighborhoods, which was opposed at the time by the center-right Citizens party. “This measure eliminates and restricts the construction of parking spaces, which only increases the parking problems in our city,” the party spokesperson argued.

However, most of the experts consulted believe that the Valladolid and Barcelona initiatives may end up being implemented in other Spanish cities, though urban planner Ezquiaga says, “most conventional families still have a car. That will likely be the case for a few more years. During the Franco regime, underground car parks were not provided in order to save costs for protected housing, and now those neighborhoods are full of vehicles occupying public space, which should be used for play or simply for citizens to inhabit.”

The ecologist Rueda believes that the initiative should be accompanied by an increase in the price of parking on the street: “We have done it in Vitoria and Barcelona and we have seen that it works; Barcelona has reduced traffic by 25% and it is largely because of this — because our wallets are our most sensitive organ.”

Samuel Romero, an expert mobility engineer, adds: “The ease of a mode of transport is a huge factor for using it; if you can park for free at home and at work, you will opt for the car. That generates traffic. It makes more people buy a car. There should be no minimum spaces. The change in Barcelona is very positive.”

The Higher Council of the Colleges of Architects of Spain (CSCAE) points out that data from London show that the supply of residential parking was reduced by around 40% compared to what previous requirements would have generated, and that 98% of this effect was due to the suppression of the minimum and only 2% to the imposition of a maximum. “What really changes things is doing away with the [minimum] requirement rather than introducing a ceiling,” he says.

The Catalan regulation also rules that there should be mandatory spaces to store bicycles and personal mobility vehicles (PMVs), something in effect in Vitoria. Vinyes Ballbé, from the Catalan urban planners, says, “urban planning regulations also generate habits. If we have designed buildings for the past 50 years assuming that each home needs space for the car, now urban planning is beginning to support diverse modes of transport. Subsidized housing cannot be designed according to a model standardized in the 1970s. In any case, the regulation will be reviewed every two years to adapt to changes in mobility.”

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