Do apartment residents have enough car parking? An empirical assessment of car parking adequacy in Australian cities

In planning new apartment developments, off-street car parking provision is frequently raised as a key concern. However, there is little understanding of the adequacy of off-street car parking for individual apartment households. Drawing on a survey of apartment residents in Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney (n = 1316), this research assesses the adequacy of off-street car parking provision for apartment households and provides an understanding of factors associated with an undersupply and oversupply of off-street car parking. Results show that around two-thirds (65.9%) of apartment households have a ‘balanced’ amount of off-street car parking, where the number of cars owned is equal to the number of allocated off-street car parking spaces. The remaining households either have an oversupply of off-street car parking (20.2%) or an undersupply (14.0%), almost always involving one parking space too many or one too few. Factors associated with an under/oversupply of off-street car parking are found to be largely related to household characteristics and residents' perceptions of parking issues. The findings highlight the potential for ‘unbundling’ off-street car parking from the purchase price or rental cost of apartment housing, while developing more tailored residential parking requirements that seek to prevent an under/oversupply of parking.