Apartment buildings in HCM City are using their ground floors for other purposes, driving their residents into parking their vehicles outside, and adding to the city’s parking and traffic woes.
Parking on the pavement on Ham Nghi Street. Photo by NLD
Even though HCM City authorities have ruled that high rises must have parking lots with enough spaces for all of their residents, many investors still ignore the regulation.
An inspection of 80 housing complexes in HCM City carried out by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) revealed that 74% of the buildings had too small parking lots, 7.5% don't have any parking at all and only 19% of buildings met the regulation criteria.
Parking lots are rarely mentioned in submitted planning applications to management agencies. For example a complex project located at No 8-8bis Ham Tu Street has a 33-story apartment building and a 53-story office building but no parking lot in its blueprint. Despite the lack of land, the housing complex at 43-45 Tu Xuong Street decided to construct an underground pool instead of a parking lot.
The Me Linh Point Tower in District No. 1 was designed with one underground carpark for all residents. But in reality, despite the building management board using the fourth and fifth floors for parking, it has still proved insufficient. Instead they have resorted to encroaching on the pavement for more parking.
While people are frantically searching for a safe place to park, HCM City authorities continue to struggle with developing adequate city parking lots. Vincom Tower is the only complex with proper parking lots in the city, and a public parking lot on Con Truong Lam Son Street is the only purpose-built parking area.
In 10 locations earmarked for parking lots, only two are under construction. Eight planned underground car parks have been reduced to five, and only two of those are preparing for construction.
Under the Government's planning, HCM City has to have at least 1,141 hectares of parking space. However, the local authorities have outlined only 561 hectares and most of them remain firmly on paper.
The Ministry of Transport Inspectorate have concluded that shortcomings in the planning process for housing projects are the main reason for the current problem.
