Reduction of Mandatory Minimum Parking Requirements
Health & Wellness Policy Recommendation
The Reduction of Mandatory Minimum Parking Requirements at Bars & Nightclubs
January 2021
Overview
Good health is fundamental to improving the quality of life for people in the Greater Houston area. A primary goal of Your Houston is to elect public officials who are committed to improving the area’s public health, and then educating and empowering them to make significant changes. We focus on issues around neighborhoods, mobility, and resilience, meaning protecting lives in the face of adversity. These are all components necessary to ensure an adequate quality of life.
Local policies around improving neighborhood environments must include reasonable access to public parks, quality healthcare options, and affordable nutritious food. These pro-health policies provide people of all ages the opportunity to flourish.
Local policymakers have significant influence over the built environment, a critical aspect of improving health conditions. The American Public Health Association defines the built environment as “the human-made features of our communities — sidewalks, public transportation, housing and more.” The scientific literature exploring how the built environment affects health is growing. A recent review explores how the relationship between urban planners and public health can be strengthened to build resilient communities. Another major review identifies ways that the built environment can help encourage communities to be more active, more connected, and make healthier food choices.
One area where the built environment and health intersect is minimum parking lot requirements. The availability and convenience of parking encourages driving, and the preponderance of automobile use discourages dense, walkable communities. A 2003 study published by the American Journal of Public Health found that residents within denser, more walkable cities enjoyed 70 more minutes per week of physical activity and lower rates of obesity than their counterparts in less-walkable cities.
Built Environment and Houston/Harris County
Houston has a few important projects in motion to improve the built environment. Harris County Public Health, the health department serving the County, has a list of tools that their Built Environment Unit uses. These serve as a guide and resource list for “organizations in the Texas Gulf Coast region looking to gain knowledge and understanding of Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) and Health Impact Reviews (HIRs).”
A recent study exploring the built environment and our area found that an average of 5 million gallons of gasoline is sold in Houston every year (Harris County). That fuel usage continues to increase. In fact, miles travelled “increased by 10% between 2002 and 2007, which shows an increment of 2% per year." This growth rate shot up to approximately 4.5% per year after 2007. Additional cars on the road and miles travelled has real health impacts. A recent, local study by researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the Houston-Galveston Area Council found that the risk of pre-term birth is significantly increased in suburban communities where more people drive longer distances to work than urban communities within the Loop.
Simply installing sidewalks and bright lamps is not sufficient. Public perception matters. In addition to enacting policy changes that improve the built environment, Your Houston PAC will support elected officials that promote a cultural shift from Houston being a car-centric city to a neighborhood-centric city.
Policy Recommendation
Given the link between Health and the Built Environment, Your Houston wants to focus our efforts to improve the city by making it safer through smarter policy and a cultural shift to walkability. One pressing issue is the number of alcohol-impaired driving deaths happening within our community. The percentage of driving deaths in Harris County that involve alcohol is nearly 40% - substantially higher than the 25% average in both Texas and the nation. This is no aberration. Harris County has had a higher rate than either Texas overall or the United States since at least 2008. A recent Houston Chronicle report put it this way “Drivers and passengers died in more than 3,000 wrecks caused by drunk or drugged drivers, roughly 1,000 more than Los Angeles, which has about twice the population.” In fact, the same Chronicle report shows that Houston/Harris County is the deadliest of the 12 largest metropolitan areas in the nation. This is unacceptable. We must hold our elected officials accountable. While the State has a major role to play in this, we cannot simply wait for Austin to act. We must enact policy changes at the local level that help protect our communities.
One simple solution to help tackle this problem is to change the minimum parking spaces required for bars. Currently, the City of Houston requires 1 parking space for every 71 square feet within the bar. This is unnecessarily high and other cities have created smarter policies. Instead we should look to eliminate minimum size parking lots at bars. This would encourage people to use public transportation, carpool with a designated driver, or use ridesharing services to get to and from their local bar.
