Across the Hudson Valley, there are dozens of large, underutilized parking areas. Built under outdated and excessive parking mandates, these parking lots now sit mostly vacant while development pressures are directed toward farms, forests and other greenfields. Underutilized parking lots, often co-located with existing infrastructure and services, present a significant opportunity. By prioritizing redevelopment of these largely empty sites for new uses, communities can accommodate growth and meet community needs, such as housing, while reducing pressure to build on greenfields or farmland, ultimately supporting more sustainable and efficient land-use patterns.

The Hudson Valley is awash in unused parking. Decades of outdated parking mandates have produced vast, mostly empty lots. Those lots are land that could instead support housing, jobs, parks, and community amenities while relieving pressure to develop farms and forests.

Excess parking has measurable economic and environmental costs. Excess asphalt drives up development costs and rents, worsens flooding, increases summer heat, degrades water quality, and reinforces car dependence, making communities less affordable, less walkable, and less resilient to climate change.

• Redeveloping parking lots is a real, near-term opportunity. Case studies across New York show that underused parking can be successfully transformed into housing, mixed-use development, green infrastructure, and even renewable energy, often with access to transit, utilities, and existing roads already in place.
• Policy change is already underway. And the Hudson Valley can take the lead. Cities and states are eliminating or reducing parking minimums and creating incentives for reuse. Pattern’s report outlines clear, practical steps that local governments can take now to unlock the redevelopment potential of underutilized parking lots and put them back to use on behalf of community needs.

Built for Cars, Ready for People: Meeting Community Needs Through Redevelopment of Oversized Parking Lots in the Hudson Valley was made possible by the support of nearly 200 Pattern members, whose annual contributions fund the time and talent for our independent research.