Tucson City Council approves new electric vehicle code | News | #citycouncil


TUCSON (KVOA) – Last week the Tucson City Council approved an amendment to the Unified Development Code to ensure  new commercial development in Tucson is Electric Vehicle (EV) ready. 

“We want to make sure there’s the infrastructure in place for those people who want to make that choice and that switch to EVS feel confident there’s going to be that infrastructure in our community to support that choice,” said Koren Manning, Planning Administrator for the City of Tucson  Planning and Development Services Department.

The new regulations apply to new multi-family housing, office buildings and retail space.

Multi-family housing, apartments, will have  outfit 10% of their parking spaces to EV outlets. And 20% of spaces are required to have conduits which allows for expansion of EV stations in the future. The new regulations are really geared toward apartment buildings, Manning said, because “Most EV owners want to charge where they live.”

A charging station charges EVs faster than using an outlet.

New offices are required to provide EV outlets for five percent of parking spaces and EV conduits for 15%.

New retail space must equip five-percent of  parking spaces with EV stations and 10% must contain conduits.

The building code change was one of the first implementation items resulting from the Electric Vehicle Readiness Roadmap adopted by Mayor and Council in April 2021. 

Mayor and Council held a public review on the regulations and circulated a survey. “Most of the concerns are about costs and the added cost to install this conduit and the new charging station or outlets,” Manning said.

Manning says city council tried to balance those concerns with preparing for the future. “We know that over time we expect to see greater adoption of electric vehicles and we want to make sure we’re prepared for that future and have that infrastructure in place.”

The new regulations go into effect December 1st, 2022. 

For more information on the City of Tucson’s climate action plan, click here.


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