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Pflugerville Needs Parking Reform
A Simple Tweak with Long-Term Impact
Shane Novak | Dec 31, 2025
-Aerial view of Stonehill Shopping Center
Pflugerville is currently in the process of updating its Unified Development Code (UDC). This opens so many doors for where the city can go from here, and we need to capitalize on this moment. There are so many options for what we can change in the code that would be profoundly positive on Pflugerville’s growth, but the first focus must be on removing an outdated rule that affects every development project that even reaches paper.
Eliminating minimum parking requirements for residential and commercial development.
This small tweak would vastly improve our city’s financial health, affordability, walkability, and long-term resilience, and it’s a practical adjustment that has become widely popular across the country and in our region: removing a rule that no longer serves its intended purpose.
A Misuse of Land
When the city requires developers to build a fixed number of parking spaces regardless of actual need, it forces them to consume more land than their project demands. That land, which could support homes, shops, offices, or civic spaces, instead becomes a sea of asphalt.
From the city’s perspective, this is a losing trade. Parking lots generate little to no tax revenue, yet still require roads, drainage, utilities, and long-term maintenance. Over time, this pattern produces large areas of low-value land that cannot pay for the infrastructure required to serve them.
In short, it’s a bad investment, both for developers and the city itself
The High Cost of “Free” Parking
Parking is never free. The cost is simply hidden.
Even surface parking spaces can cost between $1,500 and $3,000 each, with structured parking costing far more. When we require developers to build a minimum amount of parking, we are effectively adding tens to possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars to a project before a single home or storefront becomes useful.
Those excess costs are passed on to renters, homebuyers, and small business owners, meaning fewer locally owned projects. Parking mandates favor large, corporate developers that can absorb these excess expenses, while pricing out incremental, small-scale projects, which are a critical part of building local wealth and economic resilience.
-Main Street Downtown Pflugerville
Lost Opportunities and Lost Revenue
The greatest loss caused by parking minimums is invisible: the projects that never happen.
When a development no longer pencils out because of required parking, Pflugerville doesn’t just lose a building. It loses jobs, services, housing options, and long-term tax revenue. Over time, those missed opportunities pile up. Pflugerville ends up maintaining more roads, pipes, and utilities with fewer financially productive properties to pay for them.
This is how cities get financially trapped. Not through one big mistake, but instead through hundreds of projects that follow the rules, unintentionally undermining productivity.
Let the Market Decide
Eliminating parking minimums does not mean eliminating parking. It simply means allowing property owners and developers to decide how much parking makes sense for their specific context. Businesses that need parking to attract customers will continue to build parking. But neighborhood mom-and-pop shops and housing near jobs, schools, or transit can be built with less, lowering costs and improving design.
Cities that have made this change, including Austin and Taylor, have found that development continues but in a more flexible, affordable, and walkable form.
The public cost of car-centric design
Parking mandates spread destinations farther apart, requiring more roads per person, increasing stormwater runoff, and adding long-term maintenance liabilities to the city’s balance sheet. They also lock residents into car dependency by making driving the default and only practical way to get around, adding potentially thousands of dollars annually to a family’s expenses, through gas, car maintenance, car insurance, etc., that could otherwise be avoided with walkable development.
This is not just a transportation issue, but a financial one. Every overbuilt piece of infrastructure must be maintained, adding significant long-term financial liabilities to the City’s books.
A Practical Step Toward a Stronger Pflugerville
Eliminating parking minimums in the UDC is not the end all be all for Pflugerville. But it is a practical, low-risk step toward a city that is more affordable, more adaptable, and more financially resilient.
It trusts local builders and business owners to make sensible decisions and reduces unnecessary costs. And it aligns our development rules with the goal of building a town that can thrive.
The strongest move for Pflugerville at this moment also happens to be one of the simplest. This opportunity is a rare one.
Written by: Shane Novak
Shane Novak is the Vice President and Communications Director for Strong Towns Pflugerville, as well as a freshman at the University of Oregon, studying political science and planning, public policy, and management.
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