Grafton’s Daisy Apartment block has triggered a timely debate about the downstream impacts of multi-level developments not including on-site car parks. No provision at all. Now this building of several dozen apartments was built a couple of years ago as a model of sustainable low energy urban living. The developer, Okham, was talked up as a pioneer in getting Kiwis to ditch their dependence on cars. The rubber had hit the road – and sure enough, the surrounding neighbourhood has been swamped by carmageddon. On-street parks chocca with the vehicles from the buildings dwellers, constant problems with illegal parking, loading zones hijacked, the works. It’s a disaster for businesses, for shoppers and visitors. One business, Soni Design has had a gutsful, they’re pulling stumps, and shifting to Mount Roskill.
Now this dynamic of a multi-level residential development triggering such a crunch on nearby car parks is morphing, far beyond the CBDs of our biggest cities.
Pre-election, Phil Twyford issued a National Policy Statement. And in all urban areas with more than ten thousand people, the planning rules have been defanged. Minimum car park requirements which councils would typically insist upon, are being abolished. No minimum provisions at all. 
In my hometown, the council has already surrendered to this expedience. In the CBD, on the city centre fringe and now across suburbia, it’s game on. Vast residential developments are being rolled out with zero car parks. And they monster the surrounding on-street parks.
Now I fully appreciate, wiping the on-site car park provisions is slashing thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars off the cost of these units. It’s the wider neighbourhood that cops the price. Double parking, cars parked on the berm, on the footpath, straddling the road and the footpath, you name it.
It’s all very well for the developer to be able to sharpen the price, but to hell with the neighbours and the surrounding streets who ultimately have to sacrifice their car parks.  Call me old-school if you like, but there’s nothing sustainable about this nasty neighbourhood takeover.