Restrictions on parking spaces are introduced for offices and apartment buildings built in the center of Vilnius - the council agreed that in the old town and in the center, no more than one parking space would be provided for two apartments.
Until now, only a minimum number of parking spaces was set for real estate developers in the capital. According to Mindaugas Pakalnis, director of the City Development Department, together with the installation of "park and ride" parking lots, this measure is intended to reduce the number of cars in the city center, as well as to encourage the use of public transport.
"Until now, we had a regulation to do "no less than", from now on we will have a double regulation - it will be necessary to install "no less than" and also no more than a certain number of parking spaces in the central part of the city. We don't allow real estate developers to build as much as they'd like because now they're competing to see who can offer better parking to the home owner and everyone's building those parking lots anyway. But we want to reduce parking spaces in the center," M. Pakalnis told BNS.
On Wednesday, the Council approved a total of 4 zones, where the coefficients are set - how many minimum or maximum parking spaces the builder of the facility will have to install. For example, in the 1st zone of the capital's Old Town, a minimum coefficient of 0,25 and a maximum of 0,5 has been approved, which means that for a 100 square meter office or four apartments built here, the builder will have to provide at least one parking space, and a maximum of two spaces.
Such a ceiling has not been set in the residential districts of Vilnius - it will be possible to install the maximum number of parking spaces here, and the builder must provide a parking space for each apartment or office space.
M. Pakalnis says that the builders are left with the opportunity to install even fewer places, for which the municipality will pay extra - in turn, the municipality would install the infrastructure for bicycles, pedestrian paths or electric cars.
The municipality provides similar examples in other European cities, for example, in the center of Zurich, according to the report, the number of parking spaces has not been increased for almost 30 years, and in Edinburgh, the use of public transport has increased by a quarter in five years after the reduction of parking spaces.
Author: Ignas Jačauskas
