Nowon-gu, the Secret to Solving Chronic Parking Shortages Through Parking Sharing?

Many Apartments Without Underground Parking Face Chronic Shortage... Discovering Parking Spaces with Niche Ideas
Public and Private Facility Parking Lots Opened, Resident Priority Parking Sharing Also Active
Leading 'Parking Together with Neighbors' Culture Alongside Parking Expansion and Environment Improvement

Nowon-gu, Seoul (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that it is finding solutions to local parking problems through customized strategies.

About 80% of housing in Nowon-gu consists of apartments, but most are aging complexes awaiting reconstruction, lacking or having insufficient underground parking, resulting in chronic parking issues.

The district's efforts are gradually yielding results in addressing parking problems, which were considered difficult to solve fundamentally except by expanding parking spaces through redevelopment and reconstruction.

Since 2021, the district has established a comprehensive plan to solve parking problems, focusing most on opening private parking lots and sharing resident-priority parking lots. This was because these measures were expected to have immediate effects and high perceptibility compared to expanding parking lots.

First, opening private parking lots is a project that opens parking lots of public facilities such as schools near residential areas and religious facilities to nearby residents during nights and holidays.

When the parking lot opening was first promoted in 2019, it was difficult to find participating facilities, but as the district supported facility improvement costs including CCTV installation and security lights and continued persuasion, as of 2024, it operates 1,243 parking spaces across 56 facilities. This is because facility managers, residents suffering from parking difficulties, and even nighttime walking environment and safety all felt the benefits.

In particular, in 2022, the district signed a business agreement with local automobile repair shops for the first time nationwide, presenting a model where residents and businesses coexist through vacant parking lots.

The resident-priority parking lot sharing project allows residents assigned resident-priority parking spaces to let others use the parking lot when they are not using it. Recently, sharing of resident-priority parking lots has become active. Anyone can easily use vacant resident-priority parking lots via smartphone apps or ARS phone services.

Parking lot providers participating in sharing receive 40-50% of the parking fee of 1,200 KRW per hour as revenue. Thanks to the advantage of being able to use it once when needed without registering for regular parking, the usage last year reached about 28,000 cases.

According to the Seoul Nowon-gu Ordinance on the Activation and Support of Parking Sharing enacted on September 30, 2021, the district plans to make sharing participation a principle when assigning resident-priority parking lots, give extra points based on performance when reallocating parking lots, and encourage participation further by improving the environment such as repainting parking spaces and installing signs.

Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, said, “Securing fundamental parking spaces is a future task linked to urban planning, but working together under the value of ‘sharing’ is something we can do right now,” adding, “We will develop policies not only to secure additional parking spaces but also to utilize parking spaces more conveniently and valuably.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.