Requirements that mean new homes must have two parking spaces if they have two or more bedrooms are holding Perth back from more affordable and creative housing choices, planners say.
Town planner Ben Carter said smaller developments that provided housing choice and increased density were often likely to be knocked back on parking grounds.
"If the sentiment in a particular local government is not really accepting or embracing development, then the easiest way to [fight development] is to attack things that don't comply, like parking," Mr Carter said.
In-fill housing tension in desirable suburbs
He said the issue was most fraught in Perth's inner-suburbs, which were attractive to developers.
He said most of the existing housing stock was single-family homes.
"People aren't redeveloping in areas that don't make financial sense to do so," he said.
He said that meant people were looking at areas "that actually stack up as a development project" such as the western suburbs, the inner city, near the river or near the ocean.
"Somebody like me, who is a consulting professional to developers and builders, if I don't tell them about things that are going to land them in a refusal, that's bad from a client perspective," Mr Carter said.
Mr Carter said if a development was made up of 10 dwellings or fewer, a planning refusal couldn't be appealed to the Joint Development Assessment Panel.
He said that prompted many builders to add extra parking spaces rather than go through a protracted and disputed approval process.
"I think what's happening is residents and councils are really struggling with the idea of that diversity and why someone would want something with a single garage or just two bedrooms with more compact, outdoor living areas," he said.
Choice limited for small living
He said that meant younger people, people on lower incomes and older people looking to downsize had few options, especially if they wanted to stay in the same area or live in the inner city.
"People want different things — they don't want two cars, or they want one electric car in the future, or they want to live somewhere where they can actually get out and walk and not drive so much.
"Maybe they don't want to leave that area that grew up in that area, but can't afford a $2 to $10 million house and maybe want to rent something that's a two by two."
Mr Carter said it was frustrating that many local councils were preventing those options from being created, despite having the flexibility in planning schemes to vary parking requirements.
"You can do design which is highly architectural, providing really clear housing choice and sometimes the response is – 'how would you fit your LandCruiser here'?"
Packed streets can be safer
Urban planner Eric Denholm said it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if doomsday predictions of streets packed with parked cars came true as a result of densification.
He said the while the idea of residential streets packed with cars was not always popular, it was an environment that was safer for pedestrians, especially children and older people.
"What street parking is doing is creating friction, it's creating chaos," he said.
"That creates the traffic calming, it actually slows down vehicles [because it introduces] things that actually reduce sight lines."
He said it meant drivers were likely to be uncomfortable travelling faster than 30km/h.
"If you get hit [by a car travelling] at 30km/h, you've got an 80 per cent chance of surviving. If you get hit at 50km/h, you've got an 80 per cent chance of dying."
Parking-free home still popular
Mr Denholm said older suburbs, with houses built before cars were widely available, often had streets packed with cars and were still popular places to live.
"People pay a premium to live in suburbs like East Fremantle and North Perth because they are walkable and mixed use, and many of these houses don't have space for cars on the property at all," he said.
He said not as many people would need parking spaces because household sizes were averaging 2.3 people and many of them were working from home as a result of changes brought by the pandemic.
"Particularly if the neighbourhood's car dependency eventually falls because of local employment, better public transport and higher quality street environments for walking," he said.
He said people might not need to dedicate up to 20 per cent of their property for storing cars that were stationary for 95 per cent of their life.
"In my opinion, at the end of the day, you've just got to get rid of parking minimums and let people build whatever they think is appropriate for their condition."
