Tucson adopts new rules to increase electric car charging options

In a move to ready Tucson for the future of electric transportation, the City Council unanimously approved a series of code changes last week that will require new developments to equip parking lots with charging options for electric vehicles.

The new rules take effect Dec. 1 and apply to new multifamily residential, commercial and large-scale retail developments. The city’s Uniform Development Code, the source of all development-related regulations in Tucson, will be amended to reflect the changes.

Each type of development must ensure a certain percentage of its parking spaces have electric vehicle, or EV, charging capacity. The requirements range from electric conduit that establishes the infrastructure for future EV charging to “EV ready outlets,” or physical circuits with enough voltage for EV users to plug in.

Only retail developments with more than 50 parking spots are required to equip 5% of parking with EV stations, which are physical electric networks intended for EV use instead of only an outlet.

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The differences in EV charging capacity are intended to not only make the city ready for future EV use by requiring electric wiring in new parking lots but to serve Tucson drivers already using EVs through ready-to-use outlets and stations.

“Mayor and council are sending a strong message to Tucsonans: EVs are a critical part of our future,” Mayor Regina Romero said in a news release Tuesday. “Tucsonans have said, loud and clear, that they wanted the city to act on the climate crisis. … And tonight, we take another important step on the way to implementing our EV Readiness Roadmap by connecting our buildings and our cars.”

The vote came more than a year after the city adopted an Electric Vehicle Readiness Roadmap in April 2021, a 10-year plan to boost electric-vehicle usage as part of the city’s larger goals to address climate change. Since June last year, staff has been working with stakeholders and gauging public input on how to equip the city with infrastructure that will facilitate electric car use.

The code changes expand action that the City Council took last June to require every new single-family home or duplex to have one 40-amp circuit and outlet near a parking space for EV charging.

But the more than year-long outreach process has seen a range of public opinion, with some saying the new requirements are too onerous and may discourage new development, and others contending equipping the city for electric vehicle use is far overdue to reduce local carbon emissions.

“Preparing Tucson for its necessary future of transportation that runs on renewable energy, electricity, rather than fossil fuel gases that have contributed so highly to our monstrous summer temperatures, drought and devastating floods is important,” said Councilman Kevin Dahl, who’s advocated for more stringent EV charging requirements throughout the process. “I was really pleased with the result. I was pleased that the community turned out to support it.”

Alexa Scholl, the director of government affairs for Tucson Metro Chamber, has voiced concerns about the new code changes throughout the city’s stakeholder input process. She said some stakeholders have asked to lax the requirements built into the code — specifically the rule that 5% of retail parking lots must have EV charging stations, a more expensive option than outlets.

“That was kind of our message the whole time, let’s really focus on conduit and outlets. The demand at this point isn’t there for stations,” Scholl said. “We wanted stakeholder input to be considered, to be really meaningful about this proposal so that it both achieves the goals of the city to be an EV-ready city, but also addresses kind of the current realities of doing business in Tucson.”

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Some flexibility is built into the new code amendments, however. Mayor and council approved individual parking plans for affordable housing developments, bars and restaurants where developers can submit a site-specific application to the city and undergo an analysis and approval process to provide fewer parking spaces than the code requires.

But developers and other business advocates remain concerned the new code will increase construction costs.

“We’re already seeing results of inflation making construction, in general, more expensive. There’s still interruptions in the supply chain so projects are taking longer,” Scholl said. “Overall, another mandate is another cost on new businesses coming to Tucson.”

That sentiment also applies to new housing developments, where increased construction could be “front-loaded, unfortunately, on the tenant and the owners of those units that are initially renting them or buying them,” Scholl said.

The cost per-foot of conduit ranges from $22 to $43, according to the city. Outlets at parking spaces can cost $15 to $50 per outlet, while EV stations range from $500 to $7,000.

But others say the new code changes are getting ahead of future increased costs to retrofit parking with EV charging capacity when EV use increases. Arizona’s adoption rate of EVs has accelerated in recent years and the state currently has the seventh highest number of electric cars in the country, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Robert Bulechek, a member of the Tucson Commission on Climate, Energy, and Sustainability who also participated in stakeholder outreach argues “everything that we can do to improve the code effectively is something that gets people a better product at a lower cost.”

“I spend a lot of time working with architects and contractors, and the truth is the way homes and buildings get improved is the code improves,” he said. “Within the next 10 years, we’re gonna need outlets everywhere. … The question is, do we put them in cheaply during construction, or do we pay four times as much to do it later?”

Dahl agrees with the sentiment that some increased costs are worth the fossil-fuel reductions that come with expanded EV use.

“This small percentage of extra cost in constructing a huge apartment is a small percentage of the inflationary costs the builders are facing,” he said. “And it’s a great investment in the future.”

In one year, the city will review the EV code changes and assess how many sites have adopted EV infrastructure and the impact it has had on development.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Bulechek said. “I’m not a big fan of goals, I’m a fan of policy. And so it’s one thing for the City Council to say we have these great climate goals, that doesn’t do anything. What actually changes our emissions is setting policies that reduce emissions.”