Overview
- The Grattan Institute, which released its Wasted Space report Tuesday, says Australia spends more than $1 billion a year building off‑street car parks that sit unused.
- Mandatory parking pushes up the price of new apartments by tens of thousands of dollars, including about $70,000 for a two‑bed in Sydney, $62,000 in Melbourne, $113,000 in Brisbane, $137,000 in Perth, and $95,000 in Adelaide.
- The report models that abolishing minimums would avoid building about 86,000 spaces over five years, save $5.2 billion, and help fund roughly 9,000 extra homes, with up to 140,000 additional dwellings becoming viable in Sydney and Melbourne.
- Grattan cites a mismatch between supply and need, finding about 40% of spaces in many apartment buildings sit empty at night and noting that 19% of two‑bedroom and roughly 40% of one‑bedroom or studio households do not own a car.
- The authors urge unbundled parking so buyers or renters can opt out of a space and call for residential permit schemes to manage streets, pointing to recent council rule changes and no‑parking projects near transit as workable examples.