It is only about the same length as a toothbrush but it could be a tower killer. That is how adding an extra 20cm to off-street parking bays threatens to impact Australia’s development sector, according to industry experts Particularly with project viability already challenged by construction cost escalations and labour shortages, the move could be another blow to ambitious building targets to fix the country’s critical housing shortfall. “We really don’t need this at this point in time,” Gold Coast-based Zone Planning Group director David Ransom says. “The consequence for a lot of smaller tower development sites, or even the bigger ones, is going to be there is a reasonable chance they just won’t work anymore.  “You’ll need bigger sites in order to accommodate the parking requirements … and that just means the scale of the project is twice as big, it’s twice as expensive, takes longer to build and it’s harder to get funding. “And, ultimately, it’s going to interfere with the production of new housing and exacerbate the current dwelling supply crisis.” Standards Australia, the nation’s peak national standards body, is in the throes of reviewing the national standard for off-street carparking bays in response to the so-called “autobesity” trend on the country’s roads. Or, as it says—“to reflect changes in car dimensions over time, which put simply, have got bigger”. ▲ The parking bay size review has been prompted by the growing dimensions of the average car in Australia. The existing standard for the dimensions of parking bays in both private and public lots has remained unchanged for more than 30 years. In the interim, however, there has been a severe case of car bloat—a rising number of bigger and bulkier vehicles hitting Australia’s almost 880,000km network of roads and highways. Supersized utes and SUVs—that protrude from parking bays they are too big to fit into—have become increasingly popular, dwarfing traditional sedans and hatchbacks that now make up less than 20 per cent of the market share. The trend has prompted the Standards Australia review and its proposal to increase the length of off-street parking bays from 5.4m to 5.6m. Curiously, there has been no mention of a corresponding changes to the dimensions of the existing 2.4m to 2.6m bay width or circulatory turning aisles.  More than 1200 submissions have been received from government, community and a range of other stakeholders regarding the proposal, which was initially put forward in October, 2023. A revised standard was expected to be finalised within six months but has been delayed due to multiple rounds of consultation. “We had significant public interest … we’ve taken time to thoroughly review each and every one of these [submissions],” a Standards Australia spokesperson told The Urban Developer . The new standard is due to be finalised “in coming months”. “Once implemented, it will apply to all new off-street car parks,” the spokesperson says, also noting “when considering any changes, state and local authorities may have their own requirements (for example, larger car parking spaces) in town and area planning regulations and development control plans.” ▲ Zone Planning’s Dave Ransom. From a development perspective, Ransom is critical of the logic behind the proposed changes to the standard parking bay dimensions “If there was a trend that small cement mixers or fire engines were a popular form of vehicle, would they change the standard to reflect that too?” He says by extending the required parking bay length to accommodate the nation’s fleet of larger vehicles “everybody will have to pay” because of the impact on apartment yields and housing affordability. “There’s nothing wrong with having a Dodge RAM but why should the community at large pay for it? Because that’s really what all this means. It means every new apartment will cost more.” That will particularly be the case in Queensland, Ransom says, where unlike other states carparking largely remains “the number one” factor in determining apartment tower yields. “The number of car spaces for residents, when you reverse engineer it, determines how many apartments you can get on the site. “So for developers it’ll be a case of ‘Hang on, I can get 30 less car parks in this area than I would have been able to get previously. So what do I do about that? Do I have 15 less units or do I go down another level and incur more costs? “Or try to amalgamate another property, which is not an easy or inexpensive thing to do.” As well, Ransom says in a market like the highly car-dependent Gold Coast “you’re never going to sell a unit if you don’t provide carparking”. “The market won’t accept it so you have to deal with the carparking to have a project that’s going to work. And you either do that in a basement or you do it in a podium—although there’s some sensitivity about big podiums. Or you do both. “But either way, this dimension change to carparking bay standard is going to have consequences in terms of how efficiently that can be done and it’s certainly going to have a flow on.” ▲ Sydney-based quantity surveyor Niall McSweeney. Sydney-based quantity surveyor and Altus Group Asia Pacific president for cost and project management Niall McSweeney agrees. “It’ll add to the cost,” he says. “It’ll add to the time in the ground and it could impact on what you’re actually going to do.” Although he notes the impact will depend on the site’s relevant development control plan (DCP) or local environment plan (LEP)—some of which have minimum carparking requirements and others maximum carparking requirements. According to McSweeney, the proposed 20cm increase in the length to off-street carparking bays will also invariably necessitate a wider circulatory turning aisle, adding to the construction complexity and cost. “I get why they’re actually making the carparking bays a bit longer,” he says. “Some of these vehicles look like buildings moving down the road. I mean, I drive a fairly big car but when you pull up beside one of these things … they’re very cool but enormous. “But if you really think about it, is it the tail-wagging-the-dog type of thing? Are we overly accommodating for them I suppose is the question. “From a residential development point of view … that is one of the dangers we do have. “While we’re trying to actually reduce the cost of delivery to improve affordability, anything and everything sort of seems to be going against us.”
