In many cities throughout the South, churches require a lot of parking. A lot.
The map below shows a church in downtown Hickory, NC, outlined in red. The area of land highlighted in orange shows church parking. The area in blue is vacant land owned by the church—mostly teardowns from the last decade or two—which was presumably purchased to use as overflow parking.
Photo from Google Maps
Walking down Fourth Street between First and Third Avenues, the commuter’s view, as well as their opportunities for patronage or excursion, are restricted to asphalt on the left and more asphalt on the right. In this two-block strip, one could enter a bank, a small office building, or the side entrance of the church. That’s all.
Zooming out, the parking problem becomes more concerning. The map below reveals the church’s location one block northwest of Hickory’s Union Square—the center of downtown.
Photo from Google Maps
One also sees, zooming out, that the surrounding blocks are no better—nowhere is zoned particularly well as far as parking requirements go. As evidenced by the other lots, the church cannot be blamed for the parking lot problem.
But unlike the bank in the bottom left of the first map, whose lot is never full—even predictably so—and where one might justify changing the parking requirements to accommodate this phenomenon, churches are assembly halls. Once or twice a week, they do fill up.
And unlike the banks, churches, mosques, temples, and other houses of worship are civic spaces. These spaces are where neighbors come together to share meals and company, or where folks from dispersed corners of a city unite under a common purpose. If a city lacks the density to begin with, and driving to church is the obvious option, there is no good argument for denying a church its parking—they use it!
But a dilemma lies in the five or six days of the week in which these lots sit empty. Churches and other houses of worship are amenities within neighborhoods, but blocks of street-facing parking lots are the opposite. They sit unused for about 250 to 300 days of the year.
So long as cities continue to be built under mid-century logic—that is, outward, and under strict zoning restrictions—churches will continue to run into this dilemma. Unlike a dry cleaner or hardware store, where the most logical option is the closest option, people join churches for church-specific reasons. If the only house of worship that fits your family’s needs is miles away—or a shorter but pedestrian-unfriendly walk away—these places must build more and more parking to accommodate their members.
The Hickory example embodies this dilemma. The parking requirement for religious institutions in the city is 0.2 spaces per “seat” (how seats are determined in a pew setup is another question). Though any parking minimum is probably better removed, mandating that a church has enough parking capacity for twenty percent of its congregation does not seem overbearing. Zoning isn’t really the problem in this case. If religious institutions will continue to build parking so long as their congregation demands it, and their congregation will continue to demand it in the absence of any drastic change to the residential landscape of the city, the most pressing question is not how can cities require less parking for religious institutions but instead how can this parking serve the community seven days a week?
Solution 1: Let the parking lots be parking lots.
Pros: Rather than making their parking lots private, however, churches, mosques, and temples near downtowns could reach an agreement with incoming nearby businesses whose employees use their lots during the times that churches do not: every dayeveryday except Sunday and in the evenings.
Cons: “Reach an agreement” is the sort of phrase that is many degrees easier to suggest than to enact. Stranger things have happened, however.
Solution 2: Opt for a grass lot instead of an asphalt lot.
Pros: This option allows for uses besides parking, like a sports field for children, while still allowing parking on Sundays and in the evenings. It only costs as much as it costs to dig up asphalt and maintain a yard, but it is otherwise fairly easy.
Cons: This solution requires paying for the removal of an asphalt lot and the maintenance of a yard. Additionally, tires do not mix well with grass and rain, as the spring festival-goer knows too well.
Solution 3: Kid-ify the parking lot.
Pros: The decline in church attendance in recent decades follows similar trends to the decline in rates of childhood free play. Both are symptoms of the decline of civic infrastructure. There are fewer places for people to meet and gather, and those “third spaces” that do exist are not easily accessible (especially to children, the elderly, or people with disabilities). Gathering places like these are necessary to maintain a public that values community, one in which individuals are supported by their neighbors and likewise reminded of their importance. When such spaces are in short supply, other places that rely on the public’s perceived importance of community—like religious institutions—may suffer as well. As does trust. A neighborhood that lacks a sense of community is one in which parents probably do not feel comfortable letting their children roam freely.
By creating a space where children from throughout the neighborhood can meet to play, the mosque, church, or temple parking lot can become a gathering ground. With some (a lot of) paint, parking lots can be made to feel inviting and kid-friendly, becoming places for kids to invent new games and race on scooters. Asphalt art is an increasingly popular method for turning large single-purpose lots into places for play. Examples range from the streets of Copenhagen, where subtle paint additions on streets turn them into playgrounds at recess, to the parking lot at Lewiston, N.Y.’s Artpark. The church can invite parishioners to be a part of the painting to build community buy-in.
Photo from Google Maps
Cons: Not every parent wants their kids playing in a parking lot, kid-ified or not. Additionally, not every church is in a neighborhood, much less one with young children. This project would not be free, as paint has a price and the finished piece will still require upkeep. Lastly, in the absence of good trees, which are missing from many neighborhoods and disproportionately from low-income and minority neighborhoods, parking lots are still a less-than-pleasant place to play on hot days.
I gave three possible solutions, along with their downsides, but the list is in no way complete. The more minds there are thinking about the strange nature of church parking lots (they do fill up, but only a couple times a week), the more these parking lots have a chance of becoming better-used places. At the end of the day, there is nothing cheaper to maintain than a parking lot, but there is also little to gain on the six days a week it is not used. Likewise, with the right idea, religious institutions can be persuaded to put a little attention into their lots if they can reap the rewards of increased community and fellowship in return.
Adeleine Geitner is a rising senior at Duke University studying public policy and economics. She is the Duke Urban Studies Initiative Fellow on Sprawl Repair and Nodal Development.
Great writing as always by our NextGen Student Fellows.