Draft plan recommends shared parking in Delhi

New Delhi: The draft area parking plan has recommended shared parking to be adopted by all future residential and commercial projects in the city, factoring in scarcity of land and its growing demand for various purposes.

The Delhi transport department has put the draft of guidelines for area parking planin public domain for suggestions from the stakeholders, said a Delhi government official.

Noting that land is a finite resource and there are a number of pressing requirements to be met in the city, such as affordable housing, neighbourhood parks and community facilities, the draft says that public land cannot be provided for only parking of private vehicles in stand- alone structures.

“In order to ensure efficient utilisation of land, it is recommended that in all new projects — commercial, institutional, housing, etc — at least 50 to 100 per cent of the equivalent car space (ECS) be provided as an unbundled, shared parking facility,” it says.

“Unbundled” means that the parking space shall be sold/auctioned separately during disposal of the property and not as a package deal where parking is a hidden cost to the buyer who may or may not own a car. Therefore, buyers should be given the option to purchase an ECS-space separately during the application process for an apartment or commercial space, it says. “This would reveal the true cost of parking to end users and unsold parking spaces can be sold to municipal corporations to be used as part of the public parking pool,” it says. Once sold to corporations, the shared parking facility would be available on short-term rental leases with preference for the local residents, the draft states.