ON Feb. 6, 2025, a giant in the field of urban planning and transportation, Prof. Donald Shoup, left us. Donald Shoup was a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is best known for his seminal piece, "The High Cost of Free Parking," where he explained the many negative consequences of building regulations that require buildings to have a minimum number of parking spaces for cars. These rules, also known as "parking minimums," are an unfortunate and harmful practice, borrowed from the US and currently included in the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Philippines' National Building Code.
In the IRR, for example, shopping centers should provide one parking slot per 100 square meters of shopping area; restaurants, bars and fast-food outlets should provide one parking slot per 30 sqm of customer area; and an office building should provide one parking slot per 125 sqm of gross floor area.
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