For almost two years, Harriet Gledhill has had to gamble with parking her car in a street where there are strict two-hour limits on weekdays and Saturday mornings.
Gledhill lives in a Kensington apartment building, built by developer Assemble, with limited basement parking. While she supports the sustainability values of being car-free, Gledhill relies on hers to do her job in public relations.
Harriet Gledhill has struggled without an assigned car space in Kensington.Credit: Paul Jeffers
The apartment block’s residents are ineligible for a street parking permit and Gledhill has been unsuccessful landing a spot in her building due to a lengthy waiting list, so instead she runs down to move her car every two hours.
Occasionally, she doesn’t make it in time and has racked up thousands of dollars in parking fines, and she is planning to move out. “It’s a really, really stressful situation,” she said.
“It’s a constant point of conversation on our resident group chats with people warning each other of ticket inspectors.
“There’s so little parking in Kensington that I know it’s driving all the original residents absolutely mad … to the point that people are fighting in the streets.”
As apartment developments in the inner city increasingly have fewer car spaces than there are dwellings, prominent planners say the city is in a tricky transition phase with parking restrictions tightening while car ownership continues to rise.
The number of registered passenger vehicles in metropolitan Melbourne grew to just over 3 million in 2023, according to the federal Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics, meaning there are about 1.5 cars for every dwelling.
Residents are being urged to reconsider their need for a car or to accept that the days of free street parking are over.
In Footscray, tensions flared when a proposal for a five-storey, 456-apartment complex in Whitehall Street, also by developer Assemble, was approved in February with what Maribyrnong Council officers described as a shortfall of 198 parking spaces.
The council’s transport unit initially recommended more parking be provided, but planners ultimately decided to waive the requirement due to the proximity to Footscray’s train station and main centre, together with plans for six on-site car-share spaces.
Councillor Sarah Carter supported the development but said the parking deficit was “shameful” and feared it would trigger a fierce contest for parking on local streets.
“We know that car ownership is on the rise,” Carter told the council chambers. “It has to be absolutely clear to purchasers that there isn’t a permit scheme [available to them].”
Maribyrnong Mayor Cuc Lam said street parking rules in the area were now being reviewed. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to car parking provision,” she said.
Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning analysed planning permit applications received between July 2021 and June 2022 and found that 862 permits were issued to waive or reduce parking requirements.
The department is considering replacing longstanding minimum car park requirements with a maximum rate for new apartment blocks near public transport. It’s hoped this would reduce car ownership and help housing affordability, with a car space adding at least $50,000 to the cost of an apartment.
In the CBD, this is not new. A quarter of the Melbourne City Council’s total area has done away with minimum parking requirements for new apartment buildings after 2018 research found up to 40 per cent of parking was unused every day.
But in other areas, home owners who are accustomed to free street parking now face fierce competition for space, new time limits and paying for permits.
The Planning Institute of Australia’s Victoria president, Patrick Fensham, said it supported developments seeking to reduce cars. He warned that the city could not continue to accept growing rates of car ownership.
“There’s need for a comprehensive state-based approach that aims to reduce car reliance rates in areas close to public transport,” he said. “Otherwise you get to a position where you are just locking in all the problems of car dependence.”
Fensham said the shift would mean new pressures for councils and adjustments for residents.
“There needs to be an understanding that the street [parking] resource is not endless and it needs to be managed parallel to reforms around the amount of cars allowed per apartment dwelling.”
Movement and Place Consulting managing director Knowles Tivendale, who is helping Melbourne City Council conduct parking reviews in Kensington and Southbank, said residents often opposed new developments with minimal off-street parking.
“However, every additional car space increases the likely amount of car ownership in the local area. This means that every car space typically adds to local traffic congestion, while a dwelling without a car space adds to pedestrians walking and more local shops and services.”
He said people often moved into inner areas expecting to continue needing their cars, but over time realised they rarely used them.
“So every new building has an 18 to 24-month period where there might be more cars than are necessary as the new residents recalibrate and adjust to their new neighbourhood,” Tivendale said.
Dr Chris De Gruyter, of RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research, said two things needed to happen for apartment buildings with reduced or zero parking to be successful. One was strict street parking controls by councils, and the other was better public transport.
Credit: Matt Golding
De Gruyter’s research found that between 2004 and 2022, the number of apartments had almost doubled in Melbourne, but public transport services within walking distance had increased by only 5 per cent.
“We’re loading more people onto public transport, which in some cases is already full, and that’s where the real problem is,” he said.
De Gruyter said developers would not build an apartment without parking unless they knew it was going to sell.
Assemble group managing director Kris Daff said that in his Kensington developments, which are close to two train lines, there was enough parking for about 40 per cent of the dwellings and spots are allocated according to need, such as young families and those with mobility issues.
Daff said his business was building car spaces according to current demand and, more importantly, how car use was expected to fall in the future. He believes parts of his building’s car parks might someday be repurposed.
Urban designer Andy Fergus owns a Brunswick apartment in a Nightingale Housing building, known for having zero resident parking spots.
Fergus pays $225 a month to rent a car space almost a kilometre away. Other residents, including families with children, are car-free and use some of the 12 vehicles in the basement available to hire under the GoGet car-share program.
“Something my partner and I feel quite strongly about is that we should pay the penalty for choosing to have a private car,” Fergus said.
Fergus said that as a society, we had to shift our mindset and accept tighter parking restrictions, both on streets and in apartment buildings.
“We have to think really seriously about what the impacts are of every new apartment building having 100 cars on it because aside from local parking impacts, the traffic impacts are worse for street activity and human health.”
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