Are parking lane sizes regulated by law ??
I ask this, because in big cities, I find real crammy parking and wondered if it was legal for commercial establishments to make their clients park vehicles in carmmy parking lots. What about the inevitable scratches on the car, who’s responsible for those ?
Thanks
They are regulated by building codes which are sets of standards. These standards are adopted by legislatures and the adoption of the code becomes law.
Haj
Can I ask a store to see if the building and facilities (parking lot) have been approved by the state ? Can you tell me the set of standards for florida governing parking lots ?
Has any store ever been sued for not providing adequate parking ??
The State of Florida Department of Community Affairs does not review the design of parking areas for individual buildings, nor does any other state agency. Parking areas are regulated by either municipal or county zoning codes (depending on whether the site is in an incorporated or unincorporated area). Parking regulations will include requirements for so many spaces per area occupied by a certain type of use (for example, one space per 30m2 of retail use), along with specifics on stall size, layout, aisle width, number of curb cuts, amount of landscaping, hardscaping, lighting, pavement surface, valet parking, parking for the disabled, shopping cart corrals, and other elements. These requirements vary from place to place, with rural and lower income areas typically having more lenient regulations (i.e. few or no landscaping, access control and/or paving requirements).
The expansion of parking areas in response to a change in the use, intensity or building size on a site is also regulated by zoning regulations. Zoning regulations governing parking in pedestrian-oriented areas, such as large city business districts, may include on-street parking in calculating required parking, and often require fewer spaces per use. A new Applebee’s in Lake Mary may require one off-street parking space per table plus one off-street parking space per employee on the busienst shift, while a new restaurant with the same amount of tables and employees in downtown Orlando will require no off-street parking.
Zoning regulations will not account for business popularity. Usually, codes require far more spaces than a use will ever need. This results in large, ugly parking lots that stay empty most of the time. Urban planners in the United States are fleeing from “worst case scenario” parking requirements, and promoting more reasonable standards; engineers are resisting them, assuming that parking demand for a business will be like the day after Thanksgiving every day, everywhere. Despite the amount of parking available at most businesses, some places will be crowded with cars; they’re a victim of their success. If you don’t like it, take your patronage elsewhere.
“Parking lanes,” usually known as drive aisles, range from 3.5 m wide, for a one way aisle accessing spaces angled at 60 defrees, to 8.5 m wide for a two way aisle accessing spaces angled at 90 degrees. Drive aisle widths are regulated in municipal and county zoning regulations.
(Of course I know this stuff. I’m writing a new zoning/subdivision.architectural design code for a Florida city.)
By the way, zoning codes written in the 1970s and 1980s often have special provisions permitting compact car parking spaces; for example, a quarter of the spaces may be 7.5’x16’ instead of the standard 9’x18’. The 1990s found Cadillac Escalades and Ford Excursions crammed into compact car spaces, so many local governments are amending their zoning codes to remove compact car provisions. In large cities, spaces in parking ramps may be smaller; often 8’ wide. Some zoning codes don’t regulate the size of parking spaces in pay lots, because the parking spaces really aren’t “required” or provided by a host use.
why not just ticket/tow these cars/trucks?
One thing I have noticed here in the UK is that in a lot of multi-story car-parks things are getting very tight with the increased use of the " people carrier" type of vehicle. Some of these car-parks were built twenty years ago when this type of vehicle was not around and many of our cars were smaller. The trouble with these car-parks is that they are built using internal concrete pillars with the space between the pillars used for parking ( usually three spaces between each pillar ) .With the advent of larger cars that space is not wide enough and the only way is to re-paint the lines to give two spaces instead of three which means losing one third of the parking space per car-park. So far nobody has done this and to judge by the amount of car paint on the concrete many people are finding it very difficult to drive into these spaces without bending their cars.