The impacts of minimum parking requirements on land use efficiency and the viability of alternative parking policies in Auckland

Abstract

Minimum parking requirements are a planning rule that specifies the minimum amount of off-street parking a new land use or a change of land use must provide. While this rule aims to prevent the spillover of excess parking onto on-street car parks, extensive research overseas has demonstrated that it causes negative unintended consequences. These include an oversupply of off-street parking, high opportunity costs and inflated expenses for developers, tenants, homebuyers and consumers. Auckland’s District Plans also adopt minimum parking requirements and their effects on land use should be assessed to see whether similar negative consequences exist.

Therefore, this study aims to determine the impacts of minimum parking requirements on land use efficiency and the viability of alternative parking policies in Auckland. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis calculated the land area used for non-residential off-street surface parking in 1996 and 2006 in West Auckland in comparison with population and vehicle access statistics. Moreover, the interviewing of professionals with parking policy expertise provided specialist opinions on minimum parking requirements’ effects on Auckland’s land use and the alternative policies that could replace them. The GIS analysis’ findings showed a high quantity of off-street parking in relation to the resident and worker populations and the number of cars available to households in the GIS Study Area. There was also agreement among the parking policy experts that minimum parking requirements inhibited productive land development in Auckland, are costly to comply with and are inadequate at supplying an optimal amount of off-street parking that reflects demand. Given these results, it is necessary to implement other policies that avoid the default provision of parking. It is therefore recommended that Auckland implements a framework of no parking requirements with accessory regulation like maximum parking requirements in its city centre and metropolitan centres. The use of shared parking and fiscal mechanisms may also reduce off-street parking supply and internalise the costs of excess parking. Auckland Council is considering adopting some of these alternatives in their Draft Unitary Plan and future research should assess their effects on land use. Other local authorities in New Zealand could also replicate this study to ascertain whether the impacts of minimum parking requirements in Auckland are present within their jurisdictions.