City of Phoenix Parking Requirements: Minimums, Stalls, and Variances

Phoenix parking requirements are set by Section 702 of the city’s Zoning Ordinance, which assigns a minimum space count to every land use, prescribes stall and aisle dimensions, and controls how the lot gets paved and landscaped. The ratios differ sharply by use: a restaurant needs roughly six times as many spaces per square foot as a comparably sized office building. The Planning and Development Department checks compliance during plan review, so a miscount stalls your permit before you break ground.

Minimum Spaces by Land Use

Housing

Single-family detached homes: 2 spaces per unit.
Townhomes: 2 spaces per unit on the lot, plus 0.25 unreserved visitor spaces per unit elsewhere in the development.
Apartments and condominiums: 1.5 spaces per unit. In properties with five or more units, at least 0.25 per unit must be unreserved guest parking.

The multi-family rule catches people out. A 200-unit apartment building needs 300 spaces, and at least 50 of those have to stay open to any resident or visitor rather than being assigned to a specific apartment.¹

Retail and Office

Retail or office under 50,000 square feet: 1 space per 300 square feet of floor area.
Retail centers from 50,000 to 350,000 square feet: 4 spaces per 1,000 square feet of tenant leasable area. Above 350,000 square feet, 4.5 per 1,000.
Office buildings 50,000 square feet and up: tiered from 3.5 per 1,000 square feet of tenant leasable area down to 2.7 per 1,000 for buildings over one million square feet.

Larger office buildings get a lower ratio because they generate fewer car trips per square foot.¹

Restaurants and Bars

Restaurants, bars, and similar businesses need 1 space per 50 square feet of customer area, excluding kitchens, restrooms, and storage. Outdoor dining and sales areas count. Any outdoor recreational area adds 1 space per 200 square feet. This is the most demanding ratio in the ordinance, which is why restaurant conversions in older strip malls so often fail parking checks.¹

Stall Size and Aisle Width

Phoenix lets you trade stall depth for aisle width. Narrower stalls require wider aisles, so the dimensions come in paired options:

Retail, restaurant, and assembly uses: 9.5 feet wide by 19 feet deep with a 24-foot aisle, or 9.5 by 18 with a 26-foot aisle.
Multi-family residential, industrial, and office uses: 8.5 feet wide by 19 feet deep with a 24-foot aisle, or 8.5 by 18 with a 26-foot aisle.
Compact spaces: 8 feet wide by 16 feet deep, allowed only beyond the required minimum count and only in the lowest-traffic parts of the site.

For retail and assembly uses, up to half of the required spaces can be built at 9 feet wide instead of 9.5, as long as double-striped lines separate each stall.²

Two-way drive aisles have to be at least 24 feet wide. Single-loaded aisles at 90 degrees need 25 feet. Angled or one-way configurations are reviewed and approved individually by the Planning and Development Department rather than following a fixed width.³

Accessible Spaces

Phoenix’s building code adopts the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design and defaults to whichever rule gives greater access when federal standards and Arizona’s Attorney General Administrative Rules differ.⁴

Accessible counts scale with the total lot. A lot of 1 to 25 spaces needs one van-accessible space. From 26 to 50 total spaces, you need two accessible spaces, one of which is van-accessible. A 200-space lot needs six accessible spaces; a 500-space lot needs nine. At least one in every six accessible spaces has to be van-accessible.⁵

Van-accessible spaces can be built as an 8-foot stall with an 8-foot access aisle, or as an 11-foot stall with a 5-foot access aisle. Either way, the access aisle must be striped and kept clear, and the space must sit on the shortest accessible route to the primary building entrance with a sign bearing the international symbol of accessibility mounted high enough to remain visible when a vehicle is parked.

Loading Zones

Loading spaces are separate from the parking count, and a loading bay cannot be counted toward the parking minimum. Each loading space measures at least 10 by 30 feet, not counting aisle or maneuvering room. Required counts:

Commercial (non-office) and industrial buildings: none under 25,000 square feet; one from 25,000 to 40,000; two from 40,001 to 100,000; the count keeps climbing, with one more space for each additional 90,000 square feet beyond 400,000.
Office buildings: none under 25,000 square feet; one from 25,000 to 100,000; two from 100,001 to 200,000; then one more per additional 100,000 square feet.
Multi-family residential: none at 25 units or fewer; one space from 26 to 150 units; then one more per additional 150 units.

Trying to use a loading bay to meet the parking minimum gets flagged in plan review.¹

Bicycle Parking

Section 1307.H sets bike parking ratios on top of the vehicle count:

Nonresidential buildings over 5,000 square feet: 1 bicycle space per 25 vehicle spaces, capped at 25 bike spaces.
Commercial and office buildings over 100,000 square feet: 1 bike space per 25 vehicle spaces, capped at 50. These buildings must also provide at least two shower stalls and ten lockers accessible to occupants.
Multi-family residential: 0.25 bike spaces per dwelling unit, capped at 50.
Small dining and drinking establishments under 5,000 square feet with no vehicle parking: at least 4 bike spaces in the frontage setback or right-of-way.

Racks have to sit within 50 feet of a building entry, keep at least 30 inches of clearance from walls, and preserve a four-foot pedestrian path. Placement in the frontage setback or public right-of-way is allowed with Planning and Development Department approval.⁶

Building Fewer Spaces: Transit Overlay and Shared Parking

There are two realistic ways to reduce the count without filing for a variance.

The first is location. Properties inside the Interim Transit-Oriented Zoning Overlay District (TOD-1) get automatic reductions. Within 1,320 feet of a light rail station, residential and multi-family uses get a 25 percent cut and commercial uses get 15 percent. Elsewhere in TOD-1, the reductions are 10 percent residential and 5 percent commercial. TOD-1 also caps parking at 125 percent of the Section 702 requirement so projects can’t overbuild. On-street parking along the lot frontage counts toward the on-site minimum within the overlay.⁷

The second is shared parking. If uses on a site peak at different times (an office that empties by 6 p.m. next to a restaurant that fills at 7), they can share spaces. The project needs at least 25,000 square feet of gross floor area with a mix of compatible operating schedules. The Planning and Development Department uses a standard demand matrix that models hourly parking need by use. Up to a 15 percent reduction can be approved by the department’s Traffic Engineer. Beyond that, you need a use permit through the Section 307 hearing process.¹

If you’re proposing changes to the standard demand curves, or the project triggers a traffic study, the shared parking analysis must be sealed by a professional civil engineer with private-development traffic and parking experience. Every property sharing parking must be covered under one combined site plan. Informal agreements between neighboring landlords do not satisfy the ordinance.¹

Variances When the Numbers Don’t Work

When shared parking and the TOD overlay still leave you short, the next step is a variance or stipulation modification. You file a detailed site plan showing existing and proposed structures, the parking count you can provide, and the specific relief you want. Filing fees:

Noncommercial variance: $490 per variance.
Commercial variance: $1,380 per variance.
Planning Hearing Officer modification of one or two stipulations: $1,080.
Modification of three or more stipulations: $1,725.
Continuance or time extension: 50 percent of the original filing fee.

A parking reduction included in an H-R, H-R1, or MR rezoning application carries no additional fee. Filed separately, it runs 30 percent of the applicable rezoning fee.⁸

Applications are submitted through the city’s SHAPE PHX portal. Review takes several weeks, and you should expect to post public notice signs on the property so neighbors can weigh in before the hearing.⁹

Paving and Landscaping the Lot

Every permanent parking area needs a dust-free surface, which in practice means asphalt or concrete. The Zoning Administrator can approve alternative materials, but standard gravel and bare earth will not pass inspection. The dust-free rule matters more in Phoenix than in most cities because desert soil kicks up heavy particulate during monsoon storms and high winds.¹

Design review guidelines layer landscaping requirements on top of the paving. At least five percent of the surface parking area, excluding perimeter landscaping and setbacks, has to be landscaped and dispersed through the lot. Landscape planters for trees inside parking areas need an inside dimension of at least five feet. For office and retail projects, every parking space should sit within 150 feet of a sidewalk or building entrance, and unshaded stretches of walkway cannot exceed 15 feet except where they cross driveways.¹⁰

Residential Landlords and Fair Housing Requests

Hitting the Section 702 minimums and the ADA count does not close the book for residential landlords. Under the federal Fair Housing Act, a tenant with a disability can request a reserved parking space as a reasonable accommodation even when the property already meets its accessible-space count. The landlord must provide the space at no cost beyond any standard parking fee that applies to all tenants.

If the disability is not visually apparent, the landlord may ask for documentation from a medical professional. That documentation does not need to state a diagnosis. It needs to explain how the mobility limitation affects the tenant and why a closer or reserved space provides meaningful access. The space should be marked “reserved” rather than with the international accessibility symbol, because a placard-marked space would legally be available to any vehicle with an accessible parking placard. Delays without good reason can be treated as a Fair Housing Act violation.

1
City of Phoenix. Phoenix Zoning Ordinance 702 – Off-Street Parking and Loading
2
City of Phoenix. Parking Requirements Guideline
3
City of Phoenix. Parking Lot Traffic Review
4
UpCodes. Phoenix Building Code 2024 – Chapter 11 Accessibility
5
United States Access Board. Chapter 5 – Parking Spaces
6
City of Phoenix. Phoenix Zoning Ordinance 1307 – Parking and Loading Standards
7
City of Phoenix. Phoenix Zoning Ordinance 662 – Interim Transit-Oriented Zoning Overlay District One (TOD-1)
8
City of Phoenix. Phoenix Zoning Ordinance – Fee Schedules
9
City of Phoenix. Planning and Development Department – Electronic Plan Review
10
City of Phoenix. Phoenix Zoning Ordinance 507 Tab A – Guidelines for Design Review