Property Hunter Magazine August Issue 2014 | Page 30

/// Hot Topic

Reserved car parks - and especially when they are empty - can be a deterrent to other drivers to park in a basement or multi-storey car park

The chart also makes a comparison to car parks in
a few popular shopping centres in Kuala Lumpur
which is almost double on a per hourly rate.
It can be argued that even though it is cheaper
to park in Kota Kinabalu, there is not enough car
park space to accommodate all those who need
it. But if drivers are still insistent on ground level
parking to the extent of double parking, the need
to build more car parks would be moot.
Chew Sang Hai of the Merdeka Group that
manages Wisma Merdeka commented that
drivers in Sabah are still not fully accustomed to
parking in multi-storey car parks even though it
has been in existence for almost 30 years.
“Multi-storey car parks have been in existence
in Kota Kinabalu since 1985. One of the earliest
shopping malls, Wisma Merdeka, had a multistorey parking lot attached to the building. But
drivers still preferred to park on the street,” he
said.
This attitude will have to change as ground level
parking bays get scarcer and like everything else
in the city, parking space is on its way up.”
He added that low occupancy of cars parked at
a multi-storey carpark is mainly due to the lower
rates charged for street carparks.
“In order to encourage drivers to park at multi-

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storey carparks, and to further improve the
demand management of carparking system, the
government should hike up the street parking
rate or restrict the parking duration on each
parking lot, for example 15 minute parking bays.
Of course this comes with good enforcement too
in order to be effective.”
Evolution Of The Car Park Experience
Several elements are involved in addressing the
car park issue. Attitude change and car park
management has to be in tandem with each other
to make it a tolerable experience for the driver.
The lack of preference to park in a car park
building has also meant a lack of technology
advancement in car park management. One
of the gripes of car park users is the long lines
queuing to exit a car park.
Thomas Ng, COO of SCP Parking Sdn Bhd
commented: “Customer parking habits actually
involves culture, attitude, and preference among
others. For example, we learned that some
customers in Kota Kinabalu are still not that
receptive of autopay system. Many still prefer
manual handling of the parking payment.”
This situation is still prevalent because many of
the older building in Kota Kinabalu are equipped
with exit cashiering system (pay at exit). However,
new auto pay systems being installed or upgraded
in newly completed developments, especially

shopping malls, will make the car park experience
more convenient.
He adds, “Of course, we see that more efforts
such as prominent and informative signboards
are now being implemented in the autopay car
park. All these will be part of the transition and
educational process.”
Is It Worth The Risk?
Investing in car parks can be a profitable
venture if the location and population number
is optimum. The risks that you have to consider
when deciding on an investment like this is – is
there reasonable capital growth to make it
worthwhile? To achieve such growth H