A Brave New World !

Planning Minister Pru Goward is being savaged for considering a law change to allow new apartment buildings without the mandatory excavated car park to accommodate residents cars.  At the same time, the minimum floor space for studio apartments is likely to drop to just 35 square metres, packing more people into city tower blocks.

This innovation would be restricted to just twenty-two Sydney council areas and all would be closely adjacent to public transport hubs.  That huge excavation for car parking is a big cost item in building construction and the change would mean a price drop of anywhere between $ 50,000 and $ 70, 000 for each apartment, opening a price gap for first home buyers.

Welcome to a brave new world where we would learn to do without the freedom of owning - and parking - a personal car.  There is the hope that an improved public transport system could lure city residents to travel on the bus and train network and for those with more complicated travel needs perhaps some sort of communal car pooling might be the answer.  If the age of electric cars does arrive, perhaps a call on a Smartphone would see a tiny electric transport delivered to take care of transport needs.

There is also pressure to adopt a Melbourne parking initiative that could see Sydney go from four wheels - to just two.   Melbourne allows scooters and motorbikes to park freely on footpaths, but doing this in Sydney attracts a hefty fine.  Some seem to think that Sydney's network of bike lanes - mostly barely used - could become the venue for the in-line parking of motorbikes and scooters without greatly inhibiting the passage of cycle traffic.

The dreamers think up Utopian ideas for future city living.  Some envisage a city centre from which cars are banned.  Those living in the inner city and owning a car would garage it in a parking building a short train ride away in an industrial suburb.   At days end, they would return it to this site and again ride public transport to their city apartment.

Having a vision - and making it work - are two very different things.  There is a danger if apartment buildings that lack car parking do go ahead that we are simply shifting the problem to somewhere else.  We see this daily in our older inner city areas.   The daily shuffle to keep parked cars moving to avoid fines for overstaying limits and streets packed with cars overnight because the old terrace housing lacked space for car parking.   As some would say  - welcome to a new third world country !

Of course, there is a solution that has been tried in some vastly authoritarian countries.  You are not permitted to register a vehicle unless you can prove to the authorities that you have a legal and approved parking location.  It would be a brave - or perhaps foolish - government to implement that restriction here.

It all seems to boil down to that old "Chicken and the egg "routine - which came first ?    We are stuck with the car - until we either manage a public transport system that seamlessly moves people to where they want to go - or private transport develops to the point that car pooling for individual use becomes a practical idea.

Until then, this proposed law change is a step into the unknown !