Visitor Parking Problems in Apartment Living
As a resident of a strata building, do you often face parking problems? With limited parking spots available for both residents and visitors in residential apartment buildings, we hear of a lot of disputes, stress, and frustration. Visitor parking solutions are an effective way to make life easier for residents in strata buildings and solve parking stress. And that is our visitor parking solutions using parking bollards. They create a fair and organised parking system to share access among residents and visitors. In this use case we look at how parking bollards can solve visitor parking challenges in apartment buildings so residents, building, and strata managers can enjoy more efficient and stress-free parking.
So if you’re looking for visitor parking solutions for your apartment building, read on.
Most apartment buildings have limited parking spaces. Not all strata buildings have a parking spot for each apartment, and often residents have more than one car. Plus, it’s expensive to build and pay for parking—a limited resource.
So it’s no wonder that when you live in a building with limited parking, you’re going to face the challenge of people parking in someone else’s spot, especially in the visitors parking if your building has it.
Case Study 1: Visitor Parking Solution in The Hub Apartments
The Hub Apartments, located in Melbourne’s vibrant suburb of Richmond, is a residential strata apartment complex constructed in 2015. With 170 residences, it has 170 dedicated resident parking spots and 13 visitor parking bays. However, like so many apartment complexes in high-density areas, The Hub faced significant challenges around visitor parking.
The Owners’ Corporation at The Hub asked the building managers to find a solution. That’s when we stepped in to solve their visitor parking challenges with our ThatsMySpot smart parking bollard visitor parking solution. All of The Hub’s visitor parking bays are located in the underground parking basement where there is no mobile connectivity or Wi-Fi access. The building had specific requirements about minimal impact on the building floor slabs.
We installed extra-tall smartphone parking bollards with auto-close sensors in each of the 13 visitor parking bays easily and efficiently. Each smartphone bollard is surface-mounted and is battery-operated. With fixings that are BCA compliant, no slab scan was required, and there was minimal impact and penetration to the slab.
By installing this system, the building manager can now monitor and control access to visitor parking bays for true visitors. Visitors to the building use our free app to register for the site, and the building manager remotely gives that visitor access to a visitor parking bay fitted with a smartphone bollard in accordance with their stay. Our visitor parking solution for The Hub with our smartphone parking bollards made a world of difference to the quality of life of residents and visitors at these apartments. Not to mention to the building manager as well!
The Result
We installed ThatsMySpot’s parking bollards in The Hub’s visitor parking bays to eraticated their visitor parking problems and resolve unhappy resident experience in their apartment building. How?
- Reduced Unauthorised Use: The automated bollards effectively deter unauthorised parking, ensuring that visitor spaces are available when needed.
- Enhanced Control: Management now efficiently controls the visitor parking spots remotely, improving the allocation process and reducing the administrative burden.
- Increased Resident Satisfaction: Residents are much happier because other residents no longer misuse visitor parking and it’s much easier to organise parking for their true visitors.
- Positive Visitor Experience: Visitors appreciate the clear communication and streamlined parking process, contributing to a positive overall experience.
For more information on implementing effective parking strategies and the benefits of smart parking bollards, visit That’s My Spot and start optimising your apartment’s visitor parking with our visitor parking solutions today.
Case Study 2:
Circa Apartments, Burwood
Avoiding Resident Misuse and Overstays in Visitor Parking
Visitor parking should be exactly that — parking for visitors.
But in many apartment buildings, visitor bays slowly become overflow parking for residents or long-term parking for visitors who stay well beyond the permitted time. What starts as the occasional misuse quickly becomes a daily frustration for residents, building managers, and genuine visitors trying to find an available space.
That was the challenge facing Circa Burwood, a modern residential apartment community in Sydney’s Inner West. Their visitor parking bays were being occupied overnight by residents and frequently used beyond the allowable parking period by visitors, making it increasingly difficult for genuine guests to access the building.
When Visitor Parking Becomes Permanent Parking
Visitor parking is one of the most valuable shared amenities in any residential building.
Family and friends visit after work. Tradespeople arrive throughout the day. Carers, support workers, delivery drivers and service providers all rely on visitor parking being available when they need it.
Unfortunately, visitor parking is also one of the most commonly abused shared facilities.
Some residents treat visitor bays as additional personal parking, leaving vehicles overnight or for extended periods. At the same time, visitors who intend to stay for only a short visit often remain parked well beyond the permitted time.
Over time, visitor parking stops serving its intended purpose.
Instead of supporting residents and their guests, the bays become occupied by the same vehicles day after day, leaving genuine visitors with nowhere to park.
The Challenge at Circa Apartments, Burwood
Circa Apartments Burwood were experiencing exactly this issue. A residential apartment building consisting of 57 residences, each with indoor secure parking bays. However, to service all the contractors, visitors and other service providers to the complex, Helm Group, as building manager only has a total of 12 visitor parking bays to allocate, and needs to manage these single-handedly.
The building’s common visitor parking area was becoming increasingly difficult to manage as residents regularly parked their own cars or often their second car overnight. In addition, visitors commonly remained parked in the visitor parking for time far exciting the permitted 6 hrs parking duration per day.
No surprises then with the misuse and abuse of visitor parking. The result was predictable.
Visitors arriving to see family or friends often found every visitor bay occupied.
Contractors and service providers spent valuable time searching for alternative parking.
Residents became frustrated when they couldn’t offer convenient parking to their guests.
For the building management team, parking complaints became a recurring part of daily operations. Managing, and monitoring visitor bays and responding to reports of unauthorised parking consumed valuable time that could have been spent managing other aspects of the property. Oscar Z of Helm Group was constantly frustrated and had little power to do anything about it. On top of that the building management couldn’t readily accommodate contractors who came to attend to important building works relating to common property.
Traditional signage, parking rules and notes left of windscreens, simply weren’t enough to change driver behaviour.
The Solution: Installing Smartphone Parking Bollards
To regain control of visitor parking bays, Circa Burwood installed thatsMYspot Smartphone Parking Bollards with Auto Closing Sensors (TMS-APL6) across their 12 common visitor parking bays.
Each visitor parking bay is now protected by an individual smartphone-controlled bollard. For Circa Burwood, the building selected the TMS-APL6 – extra-tall smartphone parking bollards with an auto-closing sensor.
The way they work is that when a visitor would like access, they or the resident their are visiting, contacts the building manager, who then enables sharing access through the Pshare app to that visitor for a specified parking bay for the duration of their stay. Once the buiding manager shares this access, the visitor can then use their smartphone like a remote control to lower the parking bollard in the designated bay that the building manager has given them access to. When the visitor leaves, the auto-sensor in these smartphone bollards will recognise that the vehicle has left, and automatically rises up back to its closed position. And so secures that visitor parking bay until the next authorised user.
When not being used, the smartphone parking bollards remain upright. This physically prevents unauthorised vehicles (for example those of residents) from occupying the visitor parking space.
The entire process happens without building staff manually having to lower the parking bollards themselves for the visitors or confronting drivers.
What Changed
The installation delivered immediate operational improvements for both residents and building management.
- Visitor parking is once again available for genuine visitors.
- Overnight resident parking in visitor bays has been virtually eliminated.
- Building management spends less time responding to parking complaints.
- Residents can confidently welcome family, friends and service providers knowing visitor parking is protected.
Most importantly, the visitor parking area now functions exactly as it was originally designed — providing fair and reliable access for visitors who need it.
Smarter Visitor Parking for Residential Communities
Managing visitor parking shouldn’t require constant monitoring, warning notices, friction and frustration or difficult confrontations with residents.
By combining physical access control with smartphone convenience, thatsMYspot helps apartment communities protect common property while improving the experience for residents, visitors and building managers alike.
If your apartment building is experiencing misuse and abuse of visitor parking, including overnight resident parking, visitor overstays or ongoing parking complaints, then thatsMYspot’s, smarter parking solution may be what you need to restore fair access and take the pain out of your visitor parking..
Talk to the thatsMYspot team today to discover how our smartphone parking bollards can help protect your visitor parking and simplify parking management across your property.
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From national brands to boutique strata schemes, that’s MY spot parking bollards are installed in apartments, gyms, childcare centres, co-working spaces, industrial estates and premium office buildings across Australia.
Explore our Case Studies to see how we solve real-world parking problems.
