During the December 15, 2021 City Council Meeting, the Bend City Council renewed the Old Bend Parking Benefit District. At that time, City Council asked City Staff to look at the Parking District with an equity lens, to ensure that parking regulations in this district allow access to all community members.

City Council also suggested that paid on-street parking could be a way to create parking access for community members who are visitors to the Old Bend Neighborhood.

At that time, City Staff was also asked to review paid on-street parking for the Downtown Parking District.

Since 2017, the Downtown Parking Advisory Committee has been implementing the Downtown Parking Strategic Management Plan, which resulted from a 2016 Parking Study and includes 29 strategies designed to manage parking in Downtown Bend. Paid on-street parking is a strategy included in the parking plan when parking demand requires additional management.

No timeline to implement paid parking has been established or decided on.

The City of Bend is learning about the impact and opportunities from removing parking minimums in new developments in Bend.

What are parking minimums?

Parking minimums are local rules and development requirements that require builders and developers of housing and commercial spaces to provide a certain amount of off-street parking spaces.  These parking space requirements are often connected to factors like:

• Bedrooms
• Square footage
• Occupancy
• Etc.

Parking minimum requirements are common practice in many cities across the United States.

A Parking District applies and manages specific parking rules within a specific geographic area to consolidated parking areas and serve a variety of parkers.

Types of Parking Districts and what they mean

• Residential Parking District
  • Residential parking districts or zones are areas where on-street parking spaces are designated for the exclusive use of nearby residents.
• Commercial Parking District
  • Commercial Parking Districts or zones are usually areas that are zoned commercial and include small business areas like a Downtown Shopping District. Commercial Parking Districts can include paid on-street and off-street parking.
• Parking Benefit District
  • Parking Benefit Districts have a variety of parking management strategies for a specific geographic area. Parking revenue from paid on-street parking fees, parking citation revenue, and/or permit fees stay in the district. An advisory committee oversees and coordinates a Parking Benefit District.

The City of Bend conducted 3 parking studies in the last 5 years. You can find out an learn more about each study below:

• Downtown Parking Study (2017)
• Galveston Parking Study (2017)
• Citywide Parking Study (2017)

On June 7, 2017 the Bend City Council adopted the Downtown Parking Strategic Management Plan. This plan outlines 28 Strategies aimed to manage downtown parking. 

• Downtown Parking Strategic Management Plan
• Downtown Parking Advisory Committee