While in most areas it seems like the notified version of the Unitary Plan was a disappointingly watered down version of the March draft plan, in the area of parking it actually seems like the notified plan might generally be an improvement. Two important changes are:
- In the Mixed Housing Urban zone the minimum is only one space per unit, whereas 2 spaces per unit were required for anything of two or more bedrooms in the March draft’s Mixed Housing zone.
- In the Mixed Housing Suburban zone the “two spaces per unit” requirement only kicks in for dwellings or three or more bedrooms, rather than two or more bedrooms.
In the Mixed Housing Urban zone maximums have also been applied, which is potentially quite useful although not as important as simply the removal of minimums.
However, throughout the parking controls section of the Unitary Plan there are still some weirdly precise controls over parking requirements – especially for business activities in areas outside centres zones. An example below:
What particularly caught my attention was the requirement for Taverns to provide at least one space per 20 square metres of floor area. Of course many Taverns will be located in centres and therefore subject to a maximum parking restriction rather than a minimum, but I’m sure many will end up in the zones where minimums apply (zones other than centres, THAB and Mixed Use zone).
One of the reasons why we tend to dislike parking minimums is that they provide a significant subsidy to those who choose to drive. Parking is a cost to provide (because it uses up space that could be used for something else plus the physical costs of construction) but it isn’t paid for by the people who use it – it’s paid for by everyone who buys something from the Tavern. This effectively means that people who drive to the Tavern are being subsidised by those who don’t – a pretty weird outcome.
In previous discussions about parking minimums for Taverns it has been pointed out that the parking might be more for staff, rather than for customers. However, the rules above require a greater amount of parking per square metre for Taverns (1:20 m2) than for other kinds of retail – including other food and beverage retail activities (1: 25m2). In other words, a 500 m2 Tavern will be required to provide 25 carparks while a 500 m2 restaurant next door would only need to provide 20 spaces.
This all leaves me with two questions:
- Where on earth do these numbers come from and why are they so illogical?
- Why is the Unitary Plan effectively encouraging people to drive to Taverns to drink by requiring the provision of so much parking?
Even more weirdly, in areas where parking maximums apply they are more restrictive for Taverns than for other retail activities.
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There is no science behind these numbers; they’ve just been plucked out of the air.
Of course if there were no minimums then traffic consultants and engineers would not necessarily have to be engaged on every design and consent job; ie where the client decides to not provide parking…. There is a self serving aspect to the professionals fighting to maintain this fantasy of need and precision around driving promotion and subsidy.
Most haven’t been plucked out of the air at all, Patrick, there’s substantial data on, for example, retail. On other areas, the research is admittedly much weaker.
What the problem is with this research is that a surveyed parking demand X has no relation to what the provision SHOULD be (what is the problem we cause if we provide less than “the demand”?)
And also that the surveys may be skewed to a particular situation, particular type of establishment etc… – if your survey series includes lots of drive-through restaurants for example, or lots of sites in Manukau Central or Albany, and you then try to derive a blanket rate for Auckland from that, your outcome for parking for restaurants would be strongly affected.
But what are they supposed to achieve?
A regulation that mandates a minimum is normally in place to force more of something than would otherwise be provided. In this case more parking than would be provided in a free market.
So why would anyone want to do this? To encourage vehicle trips? To increase development costs? To increase the number of driveways? To reduce opportunities for housing intensification? To undermine Public Transport?
Interesting exercise,check out what the stated purpose of parking regulations are in the draft plan and then assess how minimums measure up against these aims.
It’s like having a policy aim of reducing smoking and then making it mandatory for all school kids to be offered free cigarettes.
Hi Benidorm – when supporting abolishing restrictive mandatory parking rules in the IPENZ submission on the unitary plan (I succeeded, but worded more weakly in support on this than I would have wanted) I also asked the same thing. The best answer I got was “if we abolish minimums, we give away a tool”. I argued that a) we are not actually proposing to remove them all (as I said, my own submission would have been more agressive than one for my engineering society) and b) what for is that tool?
The best I can think off is that some planners and engineers must live in constant fear of circling droves of parking seekers, endlessly going around the block, finding no parking (because neither the free market nor the Council rules provided “enough”), and then, after having created traffic jams for hours with their search patterns, deciding that the appropriate next action is to get on the phone to to make hell for engineers, planners and politicians. While that is certainly true for some people – they WILL whinge about the fact that they can’t park in the centre of a town, let alone a city – the actual EFFECT of lack of parking is that people stop driving to a place. It is up to good city and transport design to make sure they don’t HAVE to drive. Problem gone.
I guess in the end it comes down to the car-focused nature of much of our planning & engineering thinking (“cars good, so we have to provide for their needs!”). The actual “problems” of not serving cars well pale in comparison with the problems serving well for cars causes.
These are very similar to numbers for bars in u.s. cities. I’m going to guess they were imported to NZ sometime and just reflect persistence in the code. The rationale for bars needing more spaces per square foot is that because more people stand in bars there are more people occupying any given square metre of space.
A classic case of the left hand of government not knowing what the right is doing. Clearly these legislated parking provisions should be driven by Police alcohol test numbers – areas that have the highest number of drunk drivers is proof of greater demand for tavern parking and this should be reflected in the minimums rather than a silly one-size-fits-all blanket ratio for the city.
Speculation on the source doesn’t help. The Council’s section 32 report should provide the justification and evidence base for the controls (be they minimums or maximums). It’s available here:
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/planspoliciesprojects/plansstrategies/unitaryplan/Pages/section32report.aspx
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to suggest traffic consultants are promoting the retention of parking minimums. There’s still plenty of transport consultants in the UK where both both parking minimums (in remote locations), maximums (in centres), and outright bans (in central London) are applied.
I think it’s a few too many logical leaps to conclude the Unitary Plan is “encouraging” drink driving. That would require you to first claim people who go to pubs always drink and drink to excess.
Perhaps having parking for pubs instead encourages responsible drinking? People to only go for ‘one or two’ and then drive home? My own experience tells me that when I’m not driving I drink more ‘because I can’!
But I agree it seems rather silly to have a single parking standard for taverns regardless of their location. If we do have parking standards, why can’t they be location or demand based (regardless of their use)? A rural pub is not going to do well is it doesn’t have any parking. A pub in a local centre could probably do with a few spots. And a city centre pub probably shouldn’t have any at all.
Of course; but the rural pub will no doubt supply sufficient or indeed surplus parking without any need for official coercion because: 1. They know their market, and 2. Land is cheap. So no need for mins out in the country.
And in the suburbs, metro centres and city? Here’s where we really get the poor outcome from these clumsy and yes arbitrary numbers; the corner bar for example, designed to service a small local walk-up or transit walk-by community as seen in many cities around the world and often considered a charming and socially useful amenity. But that here is extremely rare precisely because these rules make them both physically and economically impossible.
And, of course Matt is drawing a bit of a long bow above but in essence he’s right. Mins mean we will pretty much only get booze-barns surrounded by oceans of asphalt- very few characterful little local bars, and then only in the city where there are no market distorting mins. What we do get will all be located where the magic parking number can be supplied and afforded usually separated from the community and therefore designed to be only or largely driven to and from. And while you may have perfect self control when driving and drinking we know that many don’t.
Parking Mins basically legislate for a drinking and driving infrastructure. And consequentially and unintentionally a certain scale and location of drinking venue that encourages neither safe driving nor moderate drinking.
Really within urban limits it should be flipped around: no parking should be allowed at all?
Or the City could butt out and let the market and therefore the community find its own levels of both viable businesses and desirable watering holes….?
I must say having recently landed from London, the first time i went to a pub in the city (the Kings Arms) i was startled to find i had to walk through a massive empty car park to get to the entrance. Absolutely destroys the character of the place, and who the hell drives to a central city pub?
Central City isn’t a good example, there are no parking minimums and I don’t really know of many bars in town that provide parking. Almost all of them sit facing onto the street. But that’s the point really, such bars are only really possible in existing buildings outside of downtown or within the inner-city where MPRs don’t exist.
I think you will find historically that councils required Taverns to build car parks which were then used by shoppers of near by malls. It was a sort of tax on the Tavern when ever they were being built or extended. I can give you two examples. The prospect of Howick was forced into buying land opposit the pub and making a car park when it was renovated in the 70’s even though it had plenty of car parking behind the pub. The glen field Tavern was forced to pay for and provide parking over the road behind the Mall when it was being built even though it also had plenty of parking out front.
It would seem more accurate to say drinkers are subsidising people who shop at supermarkets.
Having said that I find large car parks at pubs as bizarre as I find motorway services in Europe selling alcohol, the two shouldn’t mix. The car park at the Red Fox on the way to Thames is huge and there have been plenty of road accidents as a result.
And what happened to the minimum cycle parks that were in early drafts? Were these kept or were they dropped and simply car park forced onto new builds?
They’re still in the notified plan, pretty much unchanged except that they’ve defined what a cycle park has to be. The draft simply required them without saying what features it had to have to be a cycle park:
http://unitaryplan.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/HTMLSept/Part%203/Chapter%20H/1%20Infrastructure/Chapter%20H%20-%201.2%20Transport.htm (section 3.2.2)
Does anyone know of a property owner that make a loss from managing spill over on to private property.
I have had a quick read of section 32. Looking for reference to removing MPR
They state there is “potential risks associated with the removal of minimum parking rates from local centres”
the only reference to this risk I can find reference to is
“increase the risk of negative effects of parking overspill onto the road network and effectively transfers the cost of managing these effects from the developer to Auckland Transport”
Could this cost may be refering to political cost.
It’s for staff!
Pubs close after most traditional public transport has closed, and provision needs to be made for them to get home safely and quickly, sometimes very late at night.
Quite normal. Should be specified as such though. Obviously city pubs should not encourage people to drive to them.
I went to a pub tonight that is probably 300sqm. They had 4 staff on, the most that they ever have is 8 yet a new pub of the same size would need 15 carparks. It isn’t for staff.
Parking minimums are entirely there to solve staff transport issues?! That’s hilarious. Either these workplaces are in the city where parking is abundant, or they’re in more dispersed areas where parking is, guess what: Abundant. What a poor argument. How about giving the business operator the option of building over this wasted land therefore having a bigger business and buying every late finishing worker a taxi ride home [for example]. Why on earth should the local authority mandate inefficient land use just for this reason which is so solvable by other means. Craziness.
I wonder how much the land being required for parking could generate for the establishment if instead it was used for something like a beer garden?
Or a small scale brewery.