By Josh McKnight | The McKnight Team
The Doylestown Borough Zoning Hearing Board voted 4-1 to conditionally grant a parking variance for Adam’s Way, a planned three-story building with 41 apartments and four commercial spaces on the former Paul B. Moyer property. The project is proposed by The Next Step Programs, a Doylestown nonprofit that bought the 2.5-acre South Clinton Street site in February.
Doylestown Borough real estate just gained a zoning precedent worth more than this one building, because the board allowed 62 parking spaces where the ordinance required 92.
What the Board Attached to the Approval
The variance came with conditions. Reserved spots for the commercial tenants. A resident permit parking program. Lease restrictions barring residents from parking on neighborhood streets. A pedestrian connectivity plan tying the site into the surrounding blocks.
That package is the interesting part. The board did not simply reduce a number. It substituted management for supply, which is a different theory of how parking works: allocate what exists, price it, and connect the site well enough that some trips do not need a car.
The nonprofit purchased the site in February with backing from local families and business owners and now enters the land development phase, covering engineering, further municipal approvals, and financing. CEO Josh Fields is aiming for construction to begin in late 2027, which is a long runway and a realistic one.
What a Parking Variance Actually Costs Doylestown Borough Real Estate
Structured or surface parking runs tens of thousands of dollars per space. Thirty spaces is a line item large enough to decide whether a small project happens at all. That is not a detail. In a borough, it is frequently the whole feasibility question.
Set that against what the numbers show right now. The average home value in the 18901 ZIP code covering Doylestown is $689,208, up 4.7 percent over the past year, with homes going to pending in around five days, per Zillow data through July 31, 2026. Bucks County overall sits at $530,927, up 3.3 percent.
Five days to pending at nearly $690,000. Doylestown Borough real estate does not have a demand problem. It has a supply problem, and parking minimums are one of the quieter reasons why you cannot find anything to buy.
Why Every Walkable Borough in Bucks Should Watch This
Parking minimums were written decades ago from national averages that had little to do with a walkable county seat. Requiring 92 spaces for 41 apartments and four storefronts assumes a car ownership pattern that does not match a property inside walking distance of a downtown.
The cost of that mismatch stays invisible to you because it shows up as buildings that never get proposed. A developer runs the numbers, the required parking does not fit on the parcel or in the budget, and the project quietly dies. Nobody reports on the apartments that were never applied for. Doylestown, Newtown, Ambler, Lansdale, and Conshohocken all carry the same tension between an ordinance written for a different era and a downtown people actually walk in.
Reasonable people land differently on this. Residents who already live on those streets did not choose to absorb overflow, and permit programs work well right up until they do not. Both things can be true: parking minimums suppress housing, and the neighbors have a real interest in how a shortfall gets managed.
If you own near a borough downtown, tell your neighbor this variance is the template. The next applicant will cite it.
What This Means for You
If you own in Doylestown Borough, watch which conditions actually get enforced, because a lease restriction is only as good as the entity enforcing it and you are the one living with the outcome. If you are buying a home near South Clinton Street, ask about the resident permit parking program before you assume your street stays as it is today. Construction is not expected until late 2027, so you have time to understand it rather than react to it.
Borough living trades square footage and driveways for walkability, and the parking question sits underneath that trade in a way most buyers never examine until they own. Doylestown is the clearest example of it in the county. The current numbers on our Doylestown PA homes for sale page are worth reviewing before you decide which side of that trade you want.
Thinking about buying or selling in Doylestown Borough or Bucks County? Let’s talk.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Doylestown Parking Variance
What is a parking variance?
It is permission to provide fewer parking spaces than a zoning ordinance requires. An applicant must show the standard creates a hardship, and the board may attach conditions to any approval.
Will fewer parking spaces affect Doylestown Borough home values?
Home values in the 18901 ZIP code covering Doylestown sit at $689,208, up 4.7 percent over the past year, per Zillow data through July 31, 2026. Street parking pressure is the near-term effect, not price.
How do parking minimums affect what gets built?
Each space costs tens of thousands of dollars to build. When the required count does not fit the parcel or the budget, the project is abandoned before anyone files an application.
When will Adam’s Way actually be built?
The nonprofit is entering the land development phase now, which covers engineering, further municipal approvals, and financing. CEO Josh Fields is targeting a construction start in late 2027, so nothing changes on that block soon.
