On 22 September 2023 all planning schemes in Victoria were changed to make a range of the ResCode Standards (which apply to single houses, and medium density housing up to four storeys) deemed-to-comply. This is a change that has been suggested for a while, and which I have long argued against (I wrote a long post about it here, which goes into the long messy history of this issue).
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Standards Australia are currently revising AS/NZS 2890.1:2004 – Parking Facilities – Part 1: Off-street car parking, the standard that underpins the design of most vehicle circulation spaces other than roads. (The consultation closes November 9). The proposed amendments include enlarged standard car park sizes, reflecting underlying shifts in the so-called B85 and B99 design vehicles. These are vehicles that are supposed to represent the 85th and 99th percentile vehicles on Australian roads – in other words, 85 percent of vehicles are below the B85 size, and 99 percent are below the 99 size. The B85 vehicle, in particular, is the standard vehicle around which buildings and car parking structures are designed.
However cars have been getting bigger, particularly with the popularity of SUVs and large dual cab utes, and the standard now proposes to reflect this with larger design vehicles and parking spaces.
This has, gratifyingly, received some media attention and pushback; there are dozens of comments on the draft new standard arguing against the change. Lewis Mumford famously compared adding lanes to roads to trying to solve an obesity problem by loosening your belt. As apt as that metaphor was – arguable fat-shaming aside – it is even more appropriate for car parking spaces. Increasing the size of car parking spaces to accommodate ever-larger vehicles is an exercise in futility, and is terrible public policy. It will exacerbate the tendency to car-dominated built form, and loosen one of the few disincentives to the purchase of over-size vehicles.
But how does this play out when what is being changed is a technical standard?
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