A lot of local urbanist groups have been pushing for this for a long time. Parking minimums were largely made up by pulling numbers out of hats in the 50s and have essentially no basis in empirical fact. Countless small businesses all across the countries exist in buildings that could not legally be built today because of parking minimums. I remember a story from a small Arkansas town about some local entrepreneurs that wanted to open a cafe in a vacant downtown building, but couldn't because they'd need to buy the adjacent building and bulldoze it to make a parking lot in order to meet parking minimums.

These also apply to residential buildings as well. If someone is wanting to build a medium sized apartment building in an older pre-war walkable area near a train station, but modern parking minimums require buying 3x the land in order to build a parking lot, that building isn't going to happen, meaning that new housing units aren't being built and thus there'll be more price pressure on existing housing.

Not to mention, denser housing allows for fewer cars and more transit, which in an absolute boon for the environment. There's a reason why suburbs emit way way more CO2 per capita that downtown areas.

Environmentalists are very much in favor of getting rid of these parking minimums. The sprawling endless mega stores, impossible to walk between with massive parking lots that are never even close to filled but taking up valuable space all come from these policies. They were originally heavily pushed by auto makers on the basis of pretty much zero evidence. Less parking lots will create denser neighborhoods that are more walkable, bikeable, and improve both the efficiency and use of public transit. There will be more things nearby, lessening the need for cars or travel for simple errands to begin with. Many downtowns have been strangled by these requirements, becoming parking lot ghost towns that barely anyone lives in, killing local businesses in the end.

Here's an environmentalist take on the issue if you don't mind a video:

https://youtu.be/OUNXFHpUhu8?si=QlIPRBNk-nG7Ha5J

It’ll mean folks working or living at a lot of places won’t have a place to park, and without further investment into rail, bus, and bike infrastructure it means that a lot of folks simply won’t be able to work or live where they need to.

On paper, this means denser development all around. But living in most of these places requires owning a vehicle. That means you gotta have somewhere to put it. Otherwise, you’ve gotta provide alternate means for folks to get to where they need to go. Expanded bus service, more light rail, and better and more bike trails are essential.

If it gets rid of the minimums, I'm not complaining.

I think the bigger part is it lowers the barrier to entry for others.

There are spots where, if I wanted to build a 10 br apartment complex, I'd have to have a 20 space parking lot. That means I either need more land or more construction for a parking deck. Expand that out to 100/200 units and you can quickly see where this becomes a barrier.

Not to mention, this further necessitates parking because now my nearest neighbor is further away, which could have simply been a bar or grocery store.

Now I'm not someone that can afford to build something that big, but I wouldn't be surprised to see new builders move into the market.

Will the use this newfound space to make the lives of the citizens or the lives of the corporations better?

I know where my bets are, on average.

its addressing sprawl problems. Not only is parking an expensive use of space to store a vehicle but its the tip of the iceberg: the access roads become a barrier to other transportation thats quieter, less polluting and most importantly more space efficient.

the other thing that needs to happen is exceptions need to be made to zoning laws for groceries and restaurants so they can be located in residential areas.

This isn't setting a parking maximum. It just says you don't have to build more parking than you feel like paying for. Businesses trying to attract people who drive will still be allowed to build enough parking for all their customers. However they won't have to pay for even more than they need which is often the case now. Many parking lots are half full on the busy days, so they can replace part of that lot with another business and better use that space and save money.

Of course businesses near downtown will probably decide most customers are not driving already (traffic is bad and parking is hard to find) so why not get rid of their parking lots completely to better serve their customers. However for every rural customer (who has to drive at least part way) lost several urban customers are gained so this is worth it for them.

This will help reduce housing costs, and generally help traffic, as well as pave the way for public transport.