Policies should be relaxed for Hanoi to operate underground parking: Experts

Hanoi's land reserves for urban transport and construction grow just 0.25% -0.3% per year, which leads to overloading of the city’s infrastructure system, especially in the downtown. Urban planning experts said that policies need to be loosened to attract investment and draw up a plan for underground space in Hanoi, according to local media. Despite growing demand for car parking, the current number of parking lots in the city is far from meeting it.  

Hanoi encourages locals to invest in parking lots. Photo: Thanh Nam

Hanoi currently has about 6.5 million vehicles of all kinds, not to mention special-purpose vehicles and those coming from other provinces. The number of cars grows about 10.2% and that of motorcycles rises 6.7% per year. Meanwhile, land reserves for urban transport and construction grow just 0.25% -0.3% per year, which leads to overload of infrastructure, especially in the downtown. There are now more than 300 licensed parking lots in Hanoi, mostly on roadbeds and sidewalks, but they meet only 14% of the demand. Typically, Hoan Kiem district has the smallest natural land area in Hanoi (4.53 million m2) but its residents own nearly 200,000 motorcycles and 17,000 cars. This amount of vehicles needs more than 1 million m2 for parking.

Over the past years, Hanoi has been developing policies to attract private investment for smart car parks or underground parking lots for cars.  So far, the city has planned a number of locations to build underground parking lots such as Thong Nhat park, the Quan Ngua Palace, the August Revolution Square, among others. While no ground has been broken yet for the construction of underground parking lot, a few multi-level car parking systems such as those on Tran Nhat Duat and Nguyen Cong Hoan streets have not met the demand.

Hanoi needs to synchronize planning schemes

According to Vice Chairman of the Hanoi Urban Planning Association Dao Ngoc Nghiem, Hanoi should focus on underground parking development. This issue has already been included in Hanoi’s master plans. Parking lot construction should take into account traffic connection, green space, population, and technology, Nghiem said. Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Transport Nguyen Xuan Thanh said a number of policies have been drawn up to involve private capital in building parking lots, including the exemption of land rental fee for the first 10 years of the project and the subsidy of up to 50% of the interest on credit for car parking construction. The Hanoi Development Investment Fund also provides loans to car parking investors with preferential interest rates. Besides, the Hanoi People's Committee has approved parking prices and services for each area depending on the scale and technological investment of each project to ensure reasonable return for investors.