Any city in the world with top class public mass transportation such as Singapore must be commended and clearly the residents and user enjoy a higher quality of life whether they actually use the public transport or not. Of course if you use it, then you have direct benefits, if you don’t and end up driving, you benefit indirectly from the reduced traffic and competition for parking.
I believe Singapore also has a policy that all the land around new stations get taken over by the government who will benefit which is eventually passed to all the citizens. This is an important policy as it also lets the density in these areas rightfully be increased to best utilize the strategic transportation. In Los Angeles the Metro that reaches to the outer areas of the town are merely turned into park and ride sites and hence the most expensive subway system in the world is highly unutilized and constantly needs to be subsidized just for operations.
One policy that I certainly think Singapore and other places should consider is how zoning and development rights for in particular private residential developments in some of these areas are written. An example I have passed daily for a number of years is the Queens Condo in Queenstown. Located just 50 meters walk form the MRT station and 3 stops to Chinatown and 5 total stops to Raffles Place, clearly a convenient prime location. What puzzles me so much about this development is the 2 main road frontages has a 4 story parking structure that I have never seen more than about a third or half at the most with cars! Clearly residents live there because of the proximity to the station and hence pay a premium so there is no need for a car.
The question is why is such a large structure built and is it a requirement by the planning authority or by the developer? In fact the proper regulations for this site should be to not to allow so much parking and hence able to either increase the plot ratio and or just provide less amenities (ie. lower parking ratio) and decrease the selling price of the apartments. In a place where such land is limited and the policy so correct to reduce the need for cars this is definitely the policy direction that should be followed. I can imagine the cost of a parking structure totaling 350m long and 18m wide could have saved a good sum of money for developers and buyers even if say 50% of this was not built. We haven’t yet looked at the long term maintenance cost which unit owners end up paying for lighting and general maintenance which I think about every night when I ride by on the MRT to see the empty parking floors with lights on for the mosquitos and birds to have a clear flight path through the vast open space.
In land scarce Singapore with property prices ever increasing this would be a logical policy for all private residential developments within a comfortable walking distance from an MRT station. Let’s hope authorities fully integrate and align their planning policies with the city transportation policies. Actually one way to retro fit this could be to turn the lower parking level facing Commonwealth Ave to some convenience retail and open it to the road clearly would serve as an amenity to all the neighborhood residents and generate some income to reduce the maintenance cost for the condo association. Now that would be a good use of existing sunk resources that I am sure the condo owners would appreciate.
I believe Singapore also has a policy that all the land around new stations get taken over by the government who will benefit which is eventually passed to all the citizens. This is an important policy as it also lets the density in these areas rightfully be increased to best utilize the strategic transportation. In Los Angeles the Metro that reaches to the outer areas of the town are merely turned into park and ride sites and hence the most expensive subway system in the world is highly unutilized and constantly needs to be subsidized just for operations.
One policy that I certainly think Singapore and other places should consider is how zoning and development rights for in particular private residential developments in some of these areas are written. An example I have passed daily for a number of years is the Queens Condo in Queenstown. Located just 50 meters walk form the MRT station and 3 stops to Chinatown and 5 total stops to Raffles Place, clearly a convenient prime location. What puzzles me so much about this development is the 2 main road frontages has a 4 story parking structure that I have never seen more than about a third or half at the most with cars! Clearly residents live there because of the proximity to the station and hence pay a premium so there is no need for a car.
The question is why is such a large structure built and is it a requirement by the planning authority or by the developer? In fact the proper regulations for this site should be to not to allow so much parking and hence able to either increase the plot ratio and or just provide less amenities (ie. lower parking ratio) and decrease the selling price of the apartments. In a place where such land is limited and the policy so correct to reduce the need for cars this is definitely the policy direction that should be followed. I can imagine the cost of a parking structure totaling 350m long and 18m wide could have saved a good sum of money for developers and buyers even if say 50% of this was not built. We haven’t yet looked at the long term maintenance cost which unit owners end up paying for lighting and general maintenance which I think about every night when I ride by on the MRT to see the empty parking floors with lights on for the mosquitos and birds to have a clear flight path through the vast open space.
In land scarce Singapore with property prices ever increasing this would be a logical policy for all private residential developments within a comfortable walking distance from an MRT station. Let’s hope authorities fully integrate and align their planning policies with the city transportation policies. Actually one way to retro fit this could be to turn the lower parking level facing Commonwealth Ave to some convenience retail and open it to the road clearly would serve as an amenity to all the neighborhood residents and generate some income to reduce the maintenance cost for the condo association. Now that would be a good use of existing sunk resources that I am sure the condo owners would appreciate.
 |
| View from Commonweath Ave., Singapore |
Singapore,
October 2011
Bertram
ReplyDeleteYour blog got me thinking about a strategy that has been used around here for
dealing with residential parking in new development areas near transit stations. What they do is sell the parking stalls separately from the units (this requires constructing separate public entrances to the garages with adequate security). The first building constructed in a new development area is required to build the standard number of parking stalls per unit, but being near a transit station they will generally have lots of stalls that their residents don’t buy. When another building is being constructed nearby they can buy any empty stalls from the first building to help meet their parking requirement, which means they don’t need to build as many parking stalls within their own building. In other words, the stalls that the first building was required to supply but didn’t use can be counted again by the next building. Eventually, as this process continues, you could end up with a building that does not have to supply any new parking stalls because they can find enough empty stalls for sale in other buildings scattered around the neighbourhood. This allows the parking supply to respond to the actual demand particularly as the demand changes over time.
Norman Hibbert
(from Linkedin Urban Design Network discussion)
Norman
DeleteThanks for the feedback, an interesting concept. I assume you mean the developer buys the excess parking lots from the neighbor to act as part of his parking count? Then the economic factor comes in, is it cheaper to buy or to build? I am not sure how the economics would influence market prices of spaces, I assume initially the cost will be at least mark up for profit on the construction?
Definitely the concept of selling parking seperate from the unit is something that should be done. Hopefully then setting a standard "x" number of units will definitely be using public transport which should be the whole objective in determining the number of parking spaces these strategic sites are allowed to build.