Even parking near your house is difficult

The parking problem has arrived at the doorstep of houses and tempers are flaring as neighbours fight for space because many homes have more than two cars.

COMMENT

Forget about the shortage of parking space in townships in the Klang Valley and shopping malls, the problem is now at your doorstep. Many houses have a minimum of two cars, belonging to husband and wife, and in the case of big families, three or four.

Where do you then find parking space for these cars? You can park one or two in your car porch how about the other two? The answer is either outside your neighbour’s house or at the side road at end of the row of houses.

Car owners are, however, fearful of parking at the side road, because of frequent car thefts and prefer to park as close to their house as possible for security and convenience. But this will set them on the course of confrontation with neighbours who are also fighting for car space.

Try driving along the road between two rows of houses in housing estates and you have to be an expert driver to drive through without hitting any cars. The roads are narrow and with cars parked on both sides you have a driver’s nightmare.

In some cases, inconsiderate drivers park their cars haphazardly and it is almost impossible to drive through and if there is another vehicle coming from the opposite direction there will a test of nerves of who is willing to reverse and give way.

Pity the garbabe truck drivers who have to negotiate carefully or sometimes take a different route or do not enter the row at all.

Most house owners assume that the space outside their houses is theirs and no one can park there. This is where the fight between neighbours start. The residential road is a public road and does not belong to anyone and no one can claim ownership. This is the same argument put forward by neighbours who want to park beyond their space outside their houses.

It is common to see house owners putting a flower pot or a broken chair outside their house so that no one else can park there. There are others who have only one car but do not want anyone else to park in front of their house and go as far as building a kerb to mark their territory.

It makes one wonder how selfish people have transformed without having an attitude of give and take or caring for others. Some house owners vent their anger by parking in such a way so as to make it difficult for the neighbours to take out their cars if parked in the space of others. The more cultured ones, do not mind but others tell their neighbours off. If both the neighbours are the warring type all hell will break loose.

Are Malaysians becoming territorial just like animals mark their territory? So how do we solve this problem of shortage of parking space besides keeping house owners from going at each other’s throats?

Nothing can be done now in existing housing estates, but in new ones, part of the recreation space which must be set aside by developers can be converted to car parks. Of course there is price to pay by having a smaller recreational space for children to play.

Developers should also increase the size of the car porch to accommodate more vehicles. Maybe it is time for developers to rethink and be innovative in building houses.

Houses built “kampung style” on concrete stilts where the whole area on the ground floor can be used to park cars may be one way to solve this problem. Housing and township developers only meet the required government standard for the width for roads and there is a need for the authorities to increase the limit to cater to the growing demand of car owners.

Housing developers should not only think of profits but provide better facilities for house owners. In this world we have to give more and take less, after all when we die we only need that six feet of space.

RamaSegar is a FMT team member.