This week’s main forum question is about one of the three Ps that can blight strata life – Parties, Pets and Parking.

A Flatchatter and a neighbour have been allocated adjoining parking spots, but they are so small that if they both park at the same time they can’t open their doors.

He wonders if he has any recourse against the strata scheme to compel it provide usable parking spaces

This is a problem that’s becoming more frequent as buildings get older and cars get bigger. The issue with older buildings is, if they have parking spaces at all, they tend to be designed for smaller cars because cars were more compact back in the day.

When the Australian Standards decided to set a default measurement for parking spaces back in 1986, they based it on the dimensions of a 1976 Ford Falcon and the mistaken belief that it was unlikely that two cars of that size would be parked adjacent to each other.

The standard has since been revised twice, most recently way back in 2004, since when there has been a massive increase in the ownership of large SUVs as well as the number of people living in apartments.

There is currently a review underway of Australian Standards for parking spaces which was due to be released in June this year. It was looking at extending the default length of car spaces to accommodate larger vehicles – but that will only apply to spaces in new buildings where the planning laws mean developers have to comply with Australian Standards.

And it’s not just the size of the space that’s considered – there are turning circles and passing distances to be considered too.

Once again, the experts working on the updated standards are saying that it’s unlikely that you will see two monster utes parked side by side.  They should take a walk through a modern apartment block car park.

Getting back to our Flatchatter, given that he and his neighbour both bought their apartments on the basis that they had parking, is the owners’ corp obliged to provide usable parking spaces?

That depends, and you can find out on what HERE.

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