Parking and the National Building Code
Credit to Author: ROBERT SIY| Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2019 16:18:59 +0000
THERE have been calls to review the National Building Code and update engineering standards, especially in the wake of the recent earthquakes in Mindanao. Another component of the law that needs updating is the provision on parking space requirements
— “parking minimums”— detailed in its implementing rules and regulations (IRR). The IRR requires that:
— Shopping centers should provide one parking slot per 100 square meters (sqm) of the shopping area.
— Restaurants, bars and fast food outlets should provide one parking slot per 20 sqm of the customer area.
— Condominium units measuring 50 to150 sqm should have one parking slot per unit; in units measuring less than 50 sqm, there should be one slot for every two units.
— An office building should provide one parking slot per 125 sqm of the gross floor area.
— Places of worship and funeral parlors should provide one parking slot per 50 sqm of floor area.
— A bowling alley should provide one parking slot for every four alleys.
For many decades, the collective wisdom was that having cheap or free parking everywhere was a good thing, that more parking is better than less parking. In today’s mobility environment, this notion has been debunked.
Parking minimums do more harm than good.
Cheap and abundant parking lead to increased car use and heavier congestion. The availability of parking space provides another reason to use a private car, instead of public transport, cycling or walking. Even when only a few public parking spaces are found in an area, some car owners will take their chances. If these spaces are occupied, some will circle around the neighborhood until one becomes available, wasting precious fuel in the process.
Parking minimums favor those with cars and penalize those without them. Policies that require buildings to have parking space make all of us pay higher prices so that people with cars can travel more conveniently. Because every building is required to have a minimum number of parking spaces, building costs end up higher than if there were no parking requirements. Parking spaces consume valuable floor area and can add up to 20 percent to the cost of a building.
The extra costs of mandated parking spaces need to be compensated by charging higher rents, which are, in turn, recovered through higher prices of goods and services. By assuring car users — the wealthiest 10 percent of Philippine households — of parking spaces in most buildings, the general public ends up paying the tab for such facilities, whether they use cars or not. This is akin to a subsidy for the affluent financed by a tax on the entire population. In the end, parking minimums are not only socially unjust, but also lead to worsening mobility for all.
What can be done? First, we need to remove parking minimums from the IRR of the National Building Code. We should allow developers or builders to decide how much parking is needed for each building, based on local circumstances. Where public transportation is available and accessible, residential and commercial buildings have much less need for parking. This will bring more affordable homes and commercial space to the market.
Second, existing malls and commercial establishments should be encouraged to convert their existing parking spaces to more productive uses. If parking minimums are removed, one could introduce a tax or levy on non-residential parking spaces, such as the parking in malls and office buildings. Owners of non-residential car parking spaces would be charged a daily fee per parking slot, regardless of whether the spaces are used or not. The parking levy could be passed on to the user, making parking more expensive and car use, less attractive.
With such a levy, the property owner would have an incentive to convert parking spaces into uses that support inclusive mobility. For instance, a car-park building in a shopping mall could be repurposed as a public transport terminal, so that car users can leave their vehicles at home and have convenient public transport options to get to their destination.
Parking slots for cars can also be reconfigured into those for bicycles and electric kick scooters in order to promote a shift to more sustainable transportation modes.
An important point is that a parking levy can be collected by a national agency or city government and used to finance better public transport services. In San Francisco, Miami and Sydney, for example, revenues from parking taxes enabled these cities to offer high quality public transport.
Third, there have been recent efforts to clear our roads of illegal parking. This is a welcome development as long as the freed-up space can be used for widening sidewalks, creating protected bike paths or dedicated lanes for public transport. Road clearing is less useful if it leads only to more road space for private cars, which ultimately attracts further car use and exacerbates congestion.
However, on selected streets, on-street parking can serve a very useful purpose, but it needs to be priced correctly. On streets with commercial establishments, on-street parking should be priced high enough and on an hourly basis, so that people park for only a few hours and not an entire day. This approach to pricing promotes turnover of parking spaces, thereby attracting more customers. Donald Shoup, parking-policy guru and author of The High Cost of Free Parking, recommends that on-street parking should be priced at a level that results in an 85-percent occupancy rate of parking spaces — with enough turnover to leave an average of one or two spaces empty per street block during business hours.
Parking policy is an important tool for improving mobility. Commuters’ welfare can be improved by eliminating cheap or free non-residential parking. Removing parking minimums in the National Building Code is a natural first step.
Robert Y. Siy is a development economist, city and regional planner, and public transport advocate. He can be reached at mobilitymatters.ph@yahoo.com or followed on Twitter @RobertRsiy