The D.C. Council is considering a tax on private employee parking spaces, a measure that could cost businesses tens of millions of dollars and lead to a fee for drivers who now park for free.

Councilmen Jim Graham and Phil Mendelson co-introduced the bill, which would levy a $25 per month “Clean Air Act Compliance Fee” on any employee garage or surface lot parking space “used by a person … to have access to employment.”

While property-owning businesses would be taxed by the city, the measure allows those charges to be passed along to individuals who park in the spaces.    

These spaces, owned by firms such as Fannie Mae, are generating no sales tax revenues and are accomplishing little to inspire transit use, to improve air quality or to reduce traffic congestion, Graham said.

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“It shouldn’t matter whether you pay for employee parking, for you get it for free; you have the same impact” on roads and air quality, said Graham, who would direct the money collected to the D.C. Department of Transportation for congestion mitigation and air quality improvement.

The Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington immediately blasted the idea.

“The reality is, most employers are probably going to have to eat those costs,” said Nicola Whiteman, the group’s vice president of government affairs. “[Free parking is] an added incentive to attracting and retaining employees in the District.”

The measure defines an “employment parking space” as one “in which employment parking by a motor vehicle occurs more than two days a week.” Officials estimate thousands exist, though no one could provide an accurate count.

Spaces that generate sales tax revenues — daily parking, for example — would be exempt, as would spaces owned by Metro, those regulated by meters, and those owned or controlled by foreign governments.

The federal government isn’t explicitly exempted in the bill, but taxing federal property is generally a no-go. Brian McNicoll, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said it “doesn’t appear that they can rope the government into it.”

“We don’t want to interfere in internal deliberations of the District government,” McNicoll said. “But Crystal City’s a short hop.”

Ronald Kirby, transportation planning director with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said the fee would have to be passed onto the employee, he said, or “it will have no impact at all on travel behavior.”

Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells co-sponsored the bill.

mneibauer@dcexaminer.com