An underground parking lot of an apartment building. (Yonhap)
INCHEON, March 8 (Korea Bizwire) — A series of disputes are taking place at newly built apartment complexes that lack parking spaces, over the payment of parking fees by residents.
A new apartment complex in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, was embroiled in controversy after a notice asking residents to agree to new parking lot operation regulations was distributed.
The notice included a table that calculates the parking fees based on the size of the apartment where each resident lives.
Apartments larger than 59 square meters are exempted from a parking fee for one car.
For smaller 36-square-meter and 44-square-meter apartments, owners have to pay 16,000 won (US$12.12) and 9,000 won per month, respectively, to park one car.
Owners of apartments larger than 59 square meters are allowed to park up to two cars. Owners of smaller apartments can only park one car.
Another newly-built apartment complex in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province exempts a one-car parking fee for owners of apartments larger than 59 square meters but plans to charge a separate parking fee for owners of 36-square-meter apartments.
Owners of 36-square-meter apartments can park no more than one car.
The apartment complexes can accommodate 1.19 cars and 1.27 cars per household, respectively.
The controversy over collecting parking fees arises from the fact that the parking facilities cannot accommodate all cars owned by residents.
Car registration per household in Incheon jumped from 0.87 cars in 2010 to 1.32 in 2020, according to the data from Statistics Korea.
“Construction companies have hesitated to build larger underground parking lots, largely due to the cost,” said Kim Hyun-soo, a professor of urban planning at Dankook University.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
