YIMBY Melbourne kicks off Urban Optimism talk series with 'Rethinking Parking'

Event calls for abolishing parking minimums, ending free parking city-wide

With 170+ tickets booked,  YIMBY Melbourne’s Wednesday January 17 event with Dr David Mepham, esteemed planner and author of Rethinking Parking: Planning and Urban Design Perspectives, attracted our largest audience yet.

Mepham presented to an audience of elected councillors, policy experts, and state government decision-makers a clear agenda for actionable policy reform, including abolishing parking minimums, transparency on parking-related expenditure, and introducing demand-based pricing mechanisms across the entire city.

A recording of the event is now available.  

Future talks to focus on design legislation, heritage, and homelessness

‘Rethinking Parking’ marks the beginning of the YIMBY Melbourne 2024 Urban Optimism talk series, which focuses on presenting actionable reforms to key stakeholders in a well-attended and energetic public forum.

On March 13, we will present ‘Unbanning Beauty’, an event focusing on design reform, and how our planning system imposes design conditions that make it impossible to build many of the kinds of buildings Melburnians want. 

In the months following, YIMBY Melbourne will present similar events focused on heritage and homelessness policy reforms.

Quotes attributable to David Mepham, author of Rethinking Parking

“Local governments are just getting destroyed by parking… We’ve got to create some space for local government to make good decisions… And the state government must step up.”

Quotes attributable to Jonathan O’Brien, Lead Organiser

“A year ago, no one would have predicted the popularity of an event on parking reform. But now there’s a real, harnessed energy of Melburnians passionate about creating a bigger, better city for everyone—and there are fewer bigger blights on our city’s land use than parking.”