OCTOBER 24 — Transport Minister Anthony Loke recently proposed that transit-oriented development (TOD) projects be given relaxation to reduce the number of car park bays as a measure to lower the prices of houses. The move would encourage the use of public transport and indirectly reduce traffic congestion while buyers can choose not to have a car park bay.
In response to this, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, Zuraida Kamaruddin highlighted that her ministry has already planned to develop land close to public transport such as LRT. The development would be without parking requirement, that will result in lower cost and house price for the people. This will bring benefit to young millennials who just starting their career, as house price will be cheaper, and they would have no dependency on personal transport.
This move should be applauded.
For young millennials who work in the city, they prefer to be close to their offices. As they are either single, or just starting a family, they do not need a big space to live. Furthermore, they do not need car to move, if they can depend on public transport. In this context, urban design intervention is used to remove other liabilities from people.
For example, let’s look at The Base project in Bangkok, Thailand. In this project, single- or two-bedroom apartment are built, fully furnished with some basic equipment, without parking. The size of the units is around 280 square feet for a single bedroom.
The unit is priced where people can buy and converted into mortgages, whereby the price of the mortgages is not more than the average rental rates in the area. These houses are built near BTS (Bangkok Mass Transit) stations, with minimal parking provisions.
For fresh graduates, banks would be willing to give them the mortgage because it is within their income, and the collateral has an upside value.
As the occupants lived near BTS, they have no luxury commitments such as car loans.
Since the unit is small, the occupants might move once the family becomes larger or they become more financially stable.
Interestingly, Kuala Lumpur City Hall has already started offering “Micro-Housing”, an initiative to provide decent accommodation for low-income fresh graduates who just moved to the city. In this case, no parking option is also provided to the tenants.
The option to provide such units should be extended to private parties as well.
However, the requirement from the government/ municipalities that restrict size of unit to a certain size in addition to car park requirement will not make this feasible.
This requirement includes for Transit Oriented Development (TOD) project, which as the name suggest, the development is built around transit i.e. access to public transportation. The parking requirement seems to negate the essence of TOD itself, whereby the tenants there have lesser requirement for personal transport.
In this aspect, car parks can still be built, but are sold separately from housing units, with taxation imposed on the car park.
Issues may arise when a large number of cars are parked outside the condominium. In addition to that, those from other areas who need to drive to the nearest train or bus station would end up parking their vehicles near or in the TODs.
This can be addressed via continuous enforcement, as well as ensuring public transport provided are reliable with good network, removing the need for the people to drive.
Essentially, the proposal by Minister of Transport and Minister of Housing and Local Government should be commended. However, both Ministers need to work together to ensure this idea is successful, via increasing networks of public transport as well as good enforcement.
House price at TOD area should be affordable for the masses. Requirement for affordable housing units with affordable pricing must be imposed by the government for TOD area to avoid profiteering by the developers and land owners.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
