apartments and car parks

Recently there has been much debate around car parking and apartments in Christchurch.  There are a number of new apartment complexes being built with neighbouring residents wondering where all the cars will go.

The most recent example is the Williams Corporation development on 420 Hagley Avenue.   This development has 39 apartments and no car parks.  Current residents are concerned that the apartment complex will add further stress and competition between hospital staff and visitors, Hagley Community College and netballers for car parks.  It will be very interesting to see how all it works out.  From personal experience visiting someone at the hospital, even at night, finding a car park was extremely difficult.

From my experience, cars and apartments still go together.  Buyers and tenants at open homes usually want to know is there a car park?  It remains a significant factor in their buying and renting decisions.   

At present public transport does not meet everyone's needs.  According to the Ministry of Transport, only 35 per cent of people in the city used public transport in the last year, in Auckland it's 60 percent and 77 percent in Wellington.   Also the routes are not that user friendly and current passenger numbers are around 80 percent of pre-earthquake numbers.

Car park size also important.  Living in the city does not mean those living in apartments will be giving up their cars or SUVs.  Car park size need to be considered when building new developments, with plenty of clearance to manoeuvre a long and wide SUV.

I raise this about SUVs as I saw this recent article by David Chaston about which motor vehicles are currently being purchased.  The love affair with SUVs continues.  I have put the link below so you can read the full article.

As David Chaston notes "New Zealand's new car market is changing fast - even if the number of new cars sold has topped out.  We are choosing SUV's increasingly when we do buy new.

In fact, now more than two-thirds of all new cars sold are SUVs.  The sales of SUVs are growing at +9% year-on-year. Sales of traditional sedans are falling -9% pa on the same basis.

SUVs of course come in various forms; compact, medium, large, and luxury.  Sales of the compact category have been on the move higher, and are now at a bit less than 30% of all SUVs. In the year to June 2017, their sales were up +22%.

The medium-sized category won almost 43% share in June, and that is growing at an +11% rate.  But the large category is losing favour, selling -6% less in the year to June.

                             year to             year to  
                           June 2017             June 2018      change
                                       #                  #                        %
SUV - compact         15,760              19,164            21.6
SUV - medium         24,374              26,947        +10.6
SUV - large                18,826              17,774            -5.6
SUV - luxury                    831                1,018          +22.5
Passenger cars        48,093             43,828            -8.9
   
Total                           107,884            108,731           +0.8

Posted in News July 05, 2018 - 02:11pm, David Chaston

I hope you have found this useful, and please let me know your thoughts by commenting.
    
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/94653/new-car-sales-growth-may-have-topped-out-there-are-still-fast-growing-segments-and-shifts