When state legislators passed the People Over Parking Act last fall, they intended to reduce the number of hoops that local builders, small businesses, and City officials need to jump through to build new housing or set up shop. Unfortunately, Chicago is currently set to implement the new state law into its zoning code in the most cumbersome way possible. There is a better way.
POPA went into effect on June 1, 2026, prohibiting Illinois municipalities from imposing or enforcing minimum parking requirements within a half mile of rail stations and transit centers and within an eighth of a mile of most fixed transit routes. In Chicago, that covers virtually all the areas where people live and do business:
- 84 percent of the land area within the city’s borders
- 96 percent of the city’s population based on the most recent census tract data
- Areas not covered by People Over Parking are nearly all unpopulated, including airport land, cemeteries, lakes, and rail yards
POPA applies to residential and commercial uses, and it covers both new buildings (whether by right or Planned Developments) and changes to existing buildings. This law is the culmination of years of local and statewide reform efforts and a growing recognition among legislators and planners that minimum parking mandates increase the cost of housing (by up to $37K per parking spot in Chicago), hurt local small businesses, and are based on arbitrary standards that fail to predict real demand. Eliminating parking mandates is the most impactful and straightforward “cut the tape” reform that cities can implement, and many have.
But developers and city departments don’t dig through state statutes every time they propose a project or issue a permit or license. Instead, the city zoning code needs to be updated to reflect changes in state law. The simple way to do this for POPA would be to just update the zoning code to eliminate any reference to parking requirements, shortening the code and getting rid of the residual requirement on the last bits of city land…