We’ve recently taken on body corporate management of a commercial scheme which has car parking problems. The scheme is a light industrial property of seven lots. There is car parking along the front of the property which is all common property. A scheme to allocate some exclusive use car parking areas was resolved at an AGM many years ago but the changes were never recorded in a new Community Management Statement (CMS) and as such have no validity today.
There is only one tenanancy that is owner occupied and there is considerable car parking contention. Some tenants have the ability to park in front of their roller garage doors without causing nuisance.
Allocating exclusive use car parking will require resolutions without dissent. Any resolutions of the body corporate at either general or committee meeting will also need to be reasonable. Granting a lease is another option and requires only a special resolution when the lease terms are less than ten years.
We recommended that the body corporate consider a solution that combined both an exclusive use allocation for all lots and a lease arrangement be put in place for the remaining car spaces that remained unallocated. The principles that we suggested be applied were –
- The approved Development Application of the scheme must be respected in regard to number of visitor spaces and number of disabled spaces.
- Waste bins need to be accommodated and vehicle access for waste removal.
- Areas where no car should stand need to be identified – turn circles, adequate clearance.
- Areas where a car can stand for loading purposes provided the car is attended at all times and for no longer than x minutes – dropoff areas – will need to be identified as a new bylaw.
- Access to a lot can not be obstructed so the use of exclusive use car parking outside a lot’s roller door is only possible if the assignment is made to the associated lot and only in cases where there is no other impacts.
- Tenants will have different needs for car parking resources and these will change as tenancies change causing fluctuation in demand for car parking resources.
- Assigned car parks to a lot should ideally be close to the lot.
- Each lot should be allocated the same number of EUA car spaces (lot entitlements are equal in this scheme).
- Identification of car spaces that can be leased/licensed by tenants would enable a mechanism to reflect the scarce resource and also earn income for the lot owners.
- Visitor spaces close to the entry of the scheme will reduce risk for both visitors and tenants.