Bloomington’s problem: Too many parking spots, too few actual destinations

Bloomington city leaders say they have a parking problem. There’s too much of it. Apartments, strip malls, office parks and big box stores across the city are swimming in oceans of asphalt that have made Bloomington difficult to navigate outside a car, they say. And they blamed parking requirements for holding back redevelopment projects because building parking lots is so expensive. So the City Council voted unanimously this fall to slash the number of required parking spaces for many types of new developments, including multifamily residential, commercial and industrial uses, by up to half. Advertisement City leaders didn’t go as far as their peers in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth who have in recent years abolished parking minimums entirely, but the move does mark a significant step in the suburb’s ongoing embrace of a more city-like future. The new rules are tailor-made for different types of development. Mayor Tim Busse characterized the effort as “using a scalpel as opposed to a sledgehammer” during council discussions. “This wasn’t a one-size-fits all,” Busse said during an October meeting. The two parking spaces that were once required for every new two-bedroom apartment is now 1.6 parking spaces, for example, and a new self-service car wash now needs just three queuing spaces per bay rather than six.