Harmonising parking demand with park area

In the past few days, information on an enterprise proposing investments in an underground parking lot at the Cau Giay Park in Hanoi's Cau Giay district has attracted much attention from the public and received controversial opinions.

Dich Vong ward in Cau Giay district has witnessed a high urbanisation rate, resulting in a serious lack of parking space.
Dich Vong ward in Cau Giay district has witnessed a high urbanisation rate, resulting in a serious lack of parking space.

The underground parking lot, with a scale of three basements at the Cau Giay Park, is suggested by the investor to use 1.45 ha out of the total 10 ha of the park. The two bottom basements would cover an area of 24,000 m2 and could accommodate up to 874 cars. The upper basement is expected to include a cinema, an event organisating centre, a children's play area, a sports area, a commercial centre, and others. The project has been approved in principle by the Hanoi authorities.

According to a representative from the Hanoi Authority for Urban Planning and Architecture, the building of an underground car-park at this location is in accordance with the urban planning, space and static traffic development orientation of the city. The municipal People's Committee of Hanoi gave the nod to the project in principle and assigned Tay Ho Infrastructure Construction Investment JSC to study the project and collect opinions of the residential community within 30 days.

Representatives of the local authorities in Dich Vong ward along with head of the residential groups, secretary of local Party cell and local political-social organisations said that the construction of the underground parking lot in this area is necessary, in order to meet the demand of static traffic of local residents and visitors, as well as visitors come to enjoy entertainment at the Cau Giay Park in both the short and long-term period.

According to the planning, Dich Vong ward has 11 schools and 64 high-rise office and apartment buildings with 51 buildings put into use, of which 25 buildings have basements for car parking and 19 buildings have part of the first floor area for motorbikes. Besides the basements of apartment buildings, there are five public parking spots, but which are now overloaded.

Car spots meet only 30% of car parking demand while the remaining number of vehicles must be placed along the road, sidewalk, the space between buildings, and others. According to the planning, 13 more high-rise apartment buildings will be constructed in the future in addition to the relocation of headquarters of many agencies and businesses to this area, increasing the demand for parking lots.

Besides the agreement, there are also objections to the implementation of the project. People are concerned that the underground parking lot in the park will break the planning, narrow the area of the park and tree-planting, and cause environmental pollution, among others.

With approximately 600,000 registered cars and a constantly increasing number of cars at 17% per year, Hanoi always faces a severe lack of parking lots. The total area reserved for static traffic is over 91ha, accounting for 0.21% of total urban construction land and meeting only 8 - 10% of parking demand. This situation is more worrisome in districts with high urbanisation rates such as Cau Giay, Nam Tu Liem and Thanh Xuan. These districts not only lack parking space, but also areas for parks, gardens, tree-planting, and entertainment.

Therefore, authorised agencies and investors should carefully consider the building of facilities above the underground parking lot with the priorities given to planting trees, building promenades, and installing amusement equipment for children to ensure the harmony of the park landscape.

From the implementation of the underground parking project, we see inadequacies in urban planning, construction and management in such a hot developing city. In Dich Vong ward, most of the original apartment buildings were only allowed to be built from 9 to 15 floors but they are now adjusted to increase to 17 to 47 floors. So, a serious lack of parking lots is understandable. People all expect that the authorities will soon work out solutions to deal with this problem, ensuring sustainable urban development.