PARKING MINIMUM ABOLITION HEARING: TODAY AT 10 AM
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PARKING MINIMUM ABOLITION HEARING: TODAY AT 10 AMWhere does Mayor Wu & City Councilors stand on the most important non-budget legislation currently before the Council?
ICYMI: Yesterday Boston City Councilors voted 10-3 to delay the vote on Mayor Wu’s $4.9B FY27 Operating Budget to the Council’s next regular meeting on June 10. BPI executive director Gregory Maynard spoke to the press about the vote and the Council’s prospects for amending Mayor Wu’s $4.9B. He spoke to the Boston Herald:
Here is what Maynard told WBUR:
The focus now will be on whether Councilors can maintain the momentum from yesterday’s vote, which was a rare example of the Council breaking out of the 7-6 split it has been in since the Council President election at the start of 2026. Today, Councilor Sharon Durkan is holding a hearing on her proposal to abolish parking minimums in Boston’s zoning code for all new residential construction in the City - read the public notice.
While this proposal seems relatively tame - it copies policy already enacted by cities across the country and here in MA, including Somerville and Cambridge - in Boston, it’s bold. That’s because Boston has not enacted any of the standard “Abundance” agenda. This zoning code text amendment is the first city-wide effort to build more market-rate housing proposed under Mayor Wu, who was elected and sworn into office back in November 2021. Looking at how this proposal was created, and the Wu administration’s outspoken opposition to it, helps explain the lack of “Abundance” style reforms in Boston:
Keep reading for what Mayor Wu and her top planning officials, plus most of the City Council, have written and said about parking minimum abolition. MAYOR WU & TOP PLANNERS STRONGLY AGAINST PARKING MINIMUM ABOLITION The opposition expressed by Wu and her top planning officials is not vague or unclear. At the December 9, 2025 hearing on Docket #1061, a hearing order about abolishing parking minimums that was also sponsored by Durkan, Deputy Planning Chief Devin Quirk expressed broad support for eliminating parking minimums but expressed opposition to a city-wide reform. READ MORE ABOUT THAT HEARING:
This line sums up Quirk’s description of the City’s position, saying - he is Speaker 8 & starts at the 37:12 mark:
While on Boston Public Radio on February 10, 2026, Mayor Wu was asked whether she supported city-wide zoning reforms of the kind recently passed in Somerville and Cambridge. Like Quirk, she expressed broad support for zoning reform, but did support the kind of reform being considered by the Council today, saying - this is at about the 1:53:19 mark:
Banker & Tradesman summed up Wu’s comments under the headline “Wu Backs Rent Control, Rejects Citywide Rezoning”. Just a month ago on May 5, 2026 Councilor Durkan directly asked Planning Chief Shen - who was not present at the December 9, 2025 hearing - whether or not he supported a parking minimum abolition, and he told her he did not. Here is the exchange:  Shen’s characterization of the folks in favor of this reforms is striking, and likely important for other zoning reform efforts in Boston - he is Speaker 2 & starts at the 49:35 mark:
With Durkan chairing today’s meeting the people Shen called “so called experts” are likely to be given a chance to respond to his critique. WHERE DO BOSTON CITY COUNCILORS STAND ON PARKING MINIMUM ABOLITION? Mayor Wu is not the only City politician who opposes a city-wide parking minimum abolition. Boston City Councilors’ positions on parking minimum reform is the rare issue that cuts across the 7-6 vote on Council President:
District 2’s Ed Flynn and Councilor-At-Large Erin Murphy both came out against the reform at a previous hearing on the issue back in December 2025. Councilor Brian Worrell came out against the proposal in his email newsletter published May 31, writing:
There is one more Councilor who has expressed open opposition to this proposal: Councilor-at-Large Ruthzee Louijeune. Louijeune framed her position in similar terms to Wu and planning officials in an answer to a question in Abundant Housing Massachusetts - a state-wide pro-housing group - 2025 City Council questionnaire, writing:
While the 4 Councilors who are against this are clear, exactly how many Councilors support this specific measure is less clear. That is because while 6 Councilors said they supported a parking minimum abolition in their responses to hat same 2025 AHMA questionnaire, many either included caveats or have created uncertainty thanks to other public action they have taken. Councilor-at-Large Julia Mejia said she supported abolition, with caveats, writing:
Councilor-at-Large Henry Santana also said he supported abolition with caveats, writing:
District 5 Councilor Enrique Pepen was more unequivocal, writing:
District 6 Councilor Ben Weber was also more unequivocal, writing:
District 7 Councilor Miniard Culpepper was also unequivocal, writing:
District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon said she support abolition with caveats, writing:
Out of those 6, Santana stands out. That is because just a year ago, while an original co-sponsor of the docket that was the focus of the December 9, 2025 hearing, Santana came out against a proposal at the Zoning Board of Appeals for a no-parking apartment building in South Boston. To date, Santana has not publicly explained how he squared his opposition to the South Boston project at the ZBA with his support for abolishing parking minimums. Councilor Durkan did not fill out an AHMA questionnaire last year, but she was the lead sponsor for the 2025 hearing order and is again the lead sponsor for his zoning text amendment change, so her strong support seems clear. That leaves just 2 Councilors without clear positions: District 1’s Gabriela Coletta Zapata and District 3’s John FitzGerald, neither of whom filled out the AHMA questionnaire. Boston Policy Institute, Inc is working to improve the public conversation - help us by following BPI on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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