Charlottesville, VA Parking Rules: EV Charging (2026)

Sec. 4, Vehicle Parking, drops the City's general off-street parking minimums but keeps a hard number for electric vehicles: wherever a parking lot has 6 or more spaces, 20 percent of those spaces must be built with the conduit and electrical capacity needed to support EV charging equipment, whether or not the chargers themselves go in immediately. The companion design section, Sec. 5, Vehicle Parking Design, which applies to any lot of 6 or more spaces or any parking structure, then regulates the equipment itself once it is installed: charging pedestals, bollards and cables cannot encroach into drive aisles or pedestrian walkways, the equipment cannot display advertising visible from a street, and any transformer or other utility equipment tied to the chargers must be screened from the street under the frontage-screen standards in Sec.

3. 2's use table, so the 20-percent conduit requirement and the equipment placement rules reach commercial, residential and mixed-use parking lots alike rather than being limited to a single district or use. The requirement is capacity-based rather than an installation mandate: a project satisfies Sec. 3 by roughing in the conduit and panel capacity for 20 percent of spaces, leaving the timing of actual charger installation, and any above that threshold, to the property owner or a future tenant.