Parking Wars, Stadium Sagas, and Housing Wins
The Dos & Dont's of April
Hey readers,
Just a reminder that we’re going to be joined by Yoni Appelbaum for a live Zoom Q&A on May 22 at 6pm ET as the first installation of our book club. You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to join — anyone can register. Should be a fun conversation where readers get to submit questions to the author! Register here.
Also, I’m thrilled to be nearing my second anniversary of writing this Substack and am offering a once-a-year discount on subscriptions until end of May. Take advantage and help me reach my subscriber goal for the year — this work is not possible without your support!
Each month I round up several pieces of news in the format of Dos & Don’ts. Enjoy!
DO: Keep the “Montana Miracle” alive
Montana has earned the nickname “Montana miracle” for its bipartisan support of common sense housing reform. In 2023, the state made a bunch of moves that most of states couldn’t even imagine:
Duplexes: legal. Backyard cottages: legal. Discretionary design review: ended. Residential parking: optional after the first space. Commercial zones: they’re also apartment zones now.
They are keeping the miracle alive with a host of new bills in 2025. The most talked-about element is that the state will remove multifamily parking mandates within most large- and medium-sized cities.
But there’s more. According to Sightline, Montana will:
legalize six-story apartment buildings on most commercial land, limit excessive impact fees, reduce construction defect liability risk, professionalize historic reviews, require equal treatment for manufactured homes, and re-legalize rural ADUs and single-stair residential buildings.
It’s a lot, it’s very exciting and I wish more states would follow suit.
DON’T: Build more parking than housing in Brooklyn
Apparently a Brooklyn council member didn’t get the memo about the Adams administration’s City of Yes. Instead, Inna Vernikov representing the Sheepshead Bay area successfully pushed back against an ambitious bid for a spot rezoning, downgrading a project that was supposed to have 60 units of housing to just 27, with 35 parking spaces – more than one spot per unit!
Streetsblog goes on to note that Vernikov is just one of several bad actors in the neighborhood:
The initial concerns over parking from the community board were due to the rampant illegal parking on that stretch of Coney Island Avenue. Officers from the nearby 61st Precinct stationhouse park their personal cars on the sidewalk and all over the curb. And car-centered businesses double- and triple-park along the avenue. But instead of asking for more enforcement, the board and Vernikov instead asked for less housing.
Unfortunately, there are no heroes in this story.
DO: Launch a $1k e-bike voucher program
E-bike subsidies have grown popular in states such as California, Maine and Vermont. But who would have guessed a city in Texas would be using extra money from a Department of Energy grant to give $1,000 vouchers to low-income families to cover 99% of the cost of an e-bike? This is just the latest move by San Antonio to prove it’s at the top of the bike game. The city has been winning awards for its bike plan and just opened a new section of a bike trail that will eventually create a 100-mile bike trail from San Antonio to Austin.