VietNamNet Bridge – After giving a nod to a series of steel made car parking lots in many areas, the Hanoi authorities are now considering setting up car parking lots in parks or public flower gardens. Urban development programmers have warned that this would damage the green space of the capital city.

The Hanoi authorities have recently allowed a company to develop the project on building up a steel truss for parking cars at the corner of the streets of Nguyen Dinh Chieu – Tran Nhan Tong, within the campus of the Thong Nhat Park in Hai Ba Trung district in Hanoi.

The project is expected to kick off in 2013, covering an area of 3000 square meters in the Thong Nhat Park. The car park, including 17 4-storey blocks would have the capacity of 400 cars once operational.

Prior to that, the company put forward the plan on building up a car park in the Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam Park with the containing capacity of 2000 square meters, enough for 80 cars. However, the project was rejected by the Hanoi Architecture Department.

Meanwhile, besides the above said project, the department has suggested that the company should team up with the Hanoi Construction Programming Institute and the Thong Nhat Park Development Company to submit the plan on another multi-storey car park area in the Thong Nhat Park. The department said the new car park would serve the activities of the Thong Nhat Park and serve the demand of local residents.

As such, if the city approves the project, there would be two car parks within the Thong Nhat Park. Dao Ngoc Nghiem, former Director of the Hanoi Architecture Department, affirmed that in principle, all public works must reserve land for car parking. However, he said, it’s necessary to reconsider the purpose of the project, and that the urban development programmers should rethink their project, if the project just aims to serve local residents.

Tran Trong Hanh, former President of the Hanoi Architecture University, agrees with Nghiem, saying that the majority of the land in parks should be reserved for greenery, water surface and entertainment works. Meanwhile, the existence of car parking areas would spoil the beauty and the green space of the parks.

“I strongly believe that it’s necessary to reconsider the building of a car parking. You should not put both your legs into one trouser leg,” he said.

Nghiem went on to say that the traffic development program has reserved the land fund for car parking areas, and that it’s necessary to focus on developing the programmed car parking lots.

The parking areas on Tran Nhat Duat, Co Tan and Hang Dau streets should be seen as the solutions for the inner city.

Nghiem also said that Hanoi is now lacking area for verdure; therefore, any commercial projects should avoid “invading” the land area for greenery.

Hanoians have been miserable because of the lack of car parking areas. With the modest land fund for transport infrastructure development, accounting for 6.8 percent of the total land area, and the rapid increase in the number of private vehicles, Hanoi has always been seriously lacking areas for static traffic.

The problem has become even more serious recently, when the city’s authorities decided not to organize car keeping services on 262 streets in Hanoi, which was explained as aiming to ease the traffic jam.

However, while the traffic jam has been eased, car and motorbike owners have become miserable because they have nowhere to park their vehicles.

Binh An