Two-bedroom Brisbane apartments to be required to have two car parks in council vote succeeds

Brisbane apartments and townhouses with two bedrooms or more are set to face a major change to parking requirements as concerns about crowded suburban streets come to a head with the City Council.

APARTMENTS and townhouses with two bedrooms in suburban Brisbane would require two dedicated car parking spaces under new changes proposed by the council.

Brisbane City Council will vote today on whether to amend the City Plan to increase the number of car parking spaces required for future multi-dwelling developments across middle-ring and outer Brisbane.

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Parking requirements for multi-dwelling developments within the CBD and inner city suburbs would not change under the proposal.

The new ratios would increase from 1.25 to 2 spaces for two bedrooms, 1.5 to 2 spaces for three bedrooms, and 1.5 to 2.5 spaces for four or more bedrooms, while visitor car parking ratios will also rise.

One bedroom units will still require one car park.

It would also scrap regulations that multi-unit dwellings within 400m of a major suburban public transport node, like Chermside bus interchange, require less parking spaces than the rest of middle-ring and outer Brisbane suburbs.

City Planning chair Matthew Bourke said developers were already building more car parks than required by the City Plan because the market demanded them.

Brisbane City Council will vote today on whether to amend the City Plan to increase the number of car parking spaces required for future multi-dwelling developments.

He said the lesser parking ratios within the 400m zone around suburban public transport nodes created competing interests between residents and commuters.

Cr Bourke said the council still had a “massive investment” in public transport, including the nearly $1 billion Brisbane Metro project plus new CityCats and its work upgrading the bus fleet.

“We’re investing in public transport and facilitating car share schemes and responding to residents’ concerns,” he said.

The amendment is one of the range of city planning changes the council signposted in its Brisbane Future Blueprint, after the Plan Your Brisbane consultation highlighted residents’ concerns about lack of parking.

Opposition city planning spokesman Jared Cassidy said Labor councillors planned to vote in favour of the amendment but the changes showed “the rot’s setting in from City Plan 2014”.

He said since the administration slashed parking ratios in 2014, streets and suburbs across Brisbane became carparks, particularly near the public transport nodes.

The idea behind reducing the parking ratios was that it would encourage people to catch the bus, train or ferry.

“In outer suburban Brisbane it just hasn’t worked because the (public transport) services aren’t frequent enough, or in many cases just aren’t there,” he said.

He said residents had watched quiet streets lined with character houses in Zillmere turn into car lined boulevards full of units.

“People have seen the very fabric of their neighbourhoods change fundamentally and for them there’s no going back,” he said.

Greens Cr Jonathan Sri said that rather than forcing developers to build more car parks, Brisbane City Council should make them pay for better public transport.

“A two-bedroom apartment in Dutton Park that’s directly above train and bus stations doesn’t necessarily require two private carparks plus visitor parking if they have access to car share services instead,” he said.

“I think we should have different rules for different parts of Brisbane, depending on the local context.

“This amendment is just tinkering around the edges of Brisbane’s transport problems, rather than moving us towards a more efficient, more sustainable, more affordable system.”

If voted through by the council, the proposed amendment would be sent to the State Government to secure its permission to proceed to public consultation.