The kerbside is not residents’ car park by default

Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Cars parked along a Christchurch street. Mike Yardley firmly opposes residents being given parking priority on streets, saying his “philosophical bottom line is that the kerb and street are firmly vested in the public domain”.

Mike Yardley is a Christchurch-based writer on current affairs and travel and a regular opinion contributor

OPINION: Should residents have priority access to roadside parking spots outside their homes or in their street? Should they be treated as top dog in the on-street parking pecking order?

Absolutely not. I totally disagree with the various council candidates and lobby groups campaigning for preferential parking status for residents in increasingly clogged streets.

Yes, housing intensification is undoubtedly fuelling the daily duel to score an on-street car park. Cr Pauline Cotter has quite ludicrously framed it as the “unintended consequences of intensification”.

No – they are the entirely predictable consequences of removing minimum on-site parking requirements.

Williams Corporation’s Matthew Horncastle says on-street car parks “belong to every citizen who funds them”.

But my philosophical bottom line is that the kerb and street are firmly vested in the public domain. They do not constitute a glorified extension of a resident’s property rights.

On that score, I fully concur with Williams Corporation managing director Matthew Horncastle. He tells me that if we carve out exclusive entitlements, “we invite endless cost and division. These car parks do not belong to a privileged group, they belong to every citizen who funds them.”

In stark contrast, Brooksfield Homes managing director Vincent Holloway backs resident parking permits. “In certain streets, especially the city centre, this would be great,” he tells me.

As you’ll be aware, the council is not considering a residents-only parking scheme, but is mulling residential exemption parking areas in streets which are governed by time- restricted parking. I don’t like the sound of that two-tier scheme either.

Horncastle agrees. “Roads are built and maintained by all ratepayers. To allow a select few to hold exemption is to violate the principle of equality before the law,” he argues.

Holloway, however, staunchly supports the proposal. “All the greatest cities in the world have this system in place,” he tells me.

But I believe simply regulating high-demand residential streets with P60 or P120 daytime restrictions - and actively enforcing them, is the best solution.

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room is undeniably the 2020 National Policy Statement (NPS) on Urban Development 2020 that removed the right of councils to require minimum off-street parking requirements for housing developments. This regulatory change was enthusiastically supported by the Christchurch council five years ago.

Should it be changed? Both developers support retaining the current NPS settings.

Horncastle argues that “in the central city, land trades at around $2000 per square metre plus GST. A single car park and its access consume about 25 square metres, immediately absorbing $50,000 of land value. Many buyers prefer affordability and proximity to amenities over owning a car.”

Holloway tells me they could “generally get around 20-30% more homes on a site if we didn’t include car parks. At the moment adding car parks or garages is always worth it for us as we get at least what it costs in the sale price due to demand.”

Brooksfield managing directors Oliver Hickman and Vincent Holloway in 2023. “A truly developed city is not a place where the poor have cars, but where the rich use public transportation,” says Holloway.

I’m a long-time fan of Brooksfield’s character-designed townhouses. They inject a welcome sense of soul into the changing streetscape.

Holloway personally supports developments without on-site parking, because “the best- functioning cities have less reliance on personal transport. Think of London or New York. A truly developed city is not a place where the poor have cars, but where the rich use public transportation.”

But it’s a classic case of theory versus reality. Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of their townhouses include off-street parking.

Holloway confirms that “we hardly build homes without a garage or car park because they’re very difficult to sell. We are led by the market.”

Horncastle is adamant that “forcing every home to include a car park strips choice and inflates cost, punishing those least able to pay.”

But does the Williams Corporation model of affordable housing come with some very big strings attached? Is it a somewhat false economy?

Many residents of their new builds do indeed drive a car and need to park it. The downstream impacts are significant, not just to roadside parking, but also exposing those vehicles to the constant risk of being broken into or stolen.

Horncastle disagrees. “It’s not the role of housing to solve crime or manage the kerb.”

But surely the onus is on a homeowner or renter to select a property that properly meets their parking needs. The kerbside is not their car park by default.