Al C-F wrote:
> On Thu, 19 May 2005 19:34:08 +0100, Not Responding
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>Planning rules force sustainable high density development where it would
>>otherwise not arise. This is a Good Thing IMO, speaking both as a
>>cyclist and an environmentalist.
>
>
> Near to the (relatively) spacious and sprawling bit of suburbia where
> I live, there is a new development at a much higher density. This has
> deliberately limited parking - to encourage use of public transport.
Encouraging public transport of part of the logic. The new rules are
found in PPG3 but there is a more readable companion document called
"Better places to live by design".
(
http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/gro...tentservertemplate/odpm_index.hcst?n=2325&l=2)
I'll quote a chunk of the relevant chapter here;
"Wh ere and how cars are parked are crucial to the
qu a l i ty of housing devel opm ent and to the ch oi ce s
people make in how they travel . The level of
parking provision and its location are both equally
i m port a n t . Car own ers want to be able to park
near their home and to be able to see their car. In
m eeting these aspira ti ons the typical re sult is a cardominated
environment with ‘car platforms’ in
f ront of houses or integral ga ra ges facing the street .
Cars dominating the housing frontage
This has a number of negative consequences
including:
â– eliminating front garden space and the
opportunities for landscape and planting;
â– blurring the distinction between public and
private space by preventing traditional
boundary treatments;
â– removing the opportunity to park on
the street;
â– introducing potential conflicts between
pedestrians and cars which have to cross the
footway to park.
In addition, dedicating car parking spaces
to individual dwellings does not provide the
same flexibility towards variations in car
ownership between households as communal
arrangements do.
Instead of the dominance of cars parked in front
of houses,there are often opportunities to use
a combination of dedicated and communal
parking, especially in developments where secure
communal provision can be made an integral part
of the overall site layout. The particular context
and requirements of a site can help to furnish an
appropriate solution.
As a guide to establishing parking policies that
support sustainable development, PPG3 points to
an upper threshold of 1.5 spaces per dwelling on
average. It is to be exp ected that, with a
sustainable approach to parking, local authorities
will revise their parking standards to allow for
significantly lower levels of parking than have
been the case recently, particularly for
developments:
â– in locations where services are readily accessible
by walking, cycling or public transport;
â– which provide housing where the demand for
parking is likely to be less than for family
housing;
â– involving conversions where off-street parking
is less likely to be successfully designed into
the scheme.
Whatever format of parking is chosen, special
account needs to be taken of those with restricted
mobility, espcially in getting in and out of parked
cars and approaching the front door of a house."
Interestingly, PPG3 also introduces a requirement for a *minimum* number
of bike parking spaces - the mention of bike parking in any planning
guidance.
> Well, there's a railway station half an hour's walk away, with an
> hourly service, and an hourly bus service to within fifteen minutes
> walk.
(A half hour's walk is probably less than 10 minute's cycling.)
We're at the stage where we are trying to start a virtuous circle
linking housing density and transport provision. Until PPG3, low
densities were the order of the day with enforced maximum. Part of the
reason bus services have been eroded is that this urban layout has been
uneconomic to address with buses. 400 metres is assumed to be the
distance people will walk to catch a bus and with low densities you just
don't have enough potential customers in the catchment area.
It's a painful phase as we move from "there are no buses therefore I
need a car" to "there are buses, I don't need a car". But if we don't
increase densities, it'll never happen.
High densities are good for cycling and walking as well. If a school or
shops have a viable catchment population of, say, 5000 homes then low
densities extend the distances between home and destination to the
extend where people are "forced" into the car.
> As an example, a five bedroomed house (three floors) with a small
> garden has one single garage and one parking space.
Two parking spaces; hardly seems limiting. It would be fundamentally
wrong to be designing our urban landscape around the assumption that
homes need more than that.
As PPG3 asks for averages of 1.5 spaces per dwelling there are likely to
be a few (probably the "affordable" housing units if the developer
wasn't picked up by the cttee) with zero car parking.
> The result is cars parked everywhere - a complete mess.
Does it really cause much of a problem? Assuming the cars are parked
legally, what's the hitch? A bit of a bugger on occasion for those who
have to park some distance away from home but hardly a tragedy.
> (Botley Lakeside, since you probably know the area.)
I keep meaning to go and visit as I've heard so much about it (negative
views from drivers, mainly).