Tiara Parking Woes

rom the beginning, parking within Tiara Damansara has always been a problem. The main reason was that the developer had only allocated 1 parking lot per unit while most units have more than 1 car, some with more than 2 cars. Needless to say, there is a shortage of parking.

Tiara Damansara has 417 covered lots. Of these, 351 are the original lots for each unit, 23 are bought lots, 3 reserved for management and the remaining 40 covered lots are rented out to residents. Additionally, there are 42 uncovered lots which are also rented out to residents. And recently the Management created 15 more uncovered lots in the triangle area near Queen’s Gate. These lots have been reserved for visitors and a minimal parking charge is levied.

Originally, when Tiara was managed by the developers, the 40 covered lots were supposed to be for visitor parking. However, as the Management then did not monitor these lots, most of these bays were taken up by residents (for their second cars) on a first-come, first-served basis.

As residents leave for work, most of the visitor lots were empty during the day. But in the evening as residents came home, the visitor lots would start filling again. If you came back too late, all the visitor lots would have been taken up and you had to park your vehicle outside the grounds.

Since most of the visitor lots were taken up by residents at night and on weekends, it was difficult for actual visitors to find parking. A visitor would be considered lucky if he/she actually got a parking bay.

In a way, this system worked as it was quite fair (first-come, first-served). Visitors (if lucky) could sometimes get to park in these visitor lots too.

However, as always, there were abusers. Some residents would park a vehicle almost permanently in a visitor lot. Then there were those residents who own 3 or 4 cars and having only one lot, parked the remaining cars in visitor lots. When they needed to use one of the vehicles parked in the visitor lots, they would take it out and put another of their cars to occupy that lot. In cases like these, the residents practically “owned” the visitor lot.

When the Tiara Management Corporation took over Tiara Damansara from the developers in 2001, the 40 covered visitor lots were converted into rental lots and 42 uncovered lots were created, initially, some for rental and some for visitors.

However, there was still abuse of the visitor lots. Some residents would pretend to be visitors and parked (sometimes permanently) their vehicles in the visitor lots. In the end there were still no lots available for actual visitors. It was difficult to monitor the situation and the security guards were not hired to be parking attendants.

Thus, due to the abuse of the visitor lots and with the great demand for rental lots, the Management Council then decided to give residents priority before visitors and all visitor parking lots were hence converted to rental lots. It was not that the Management Council did not want to allocate visitor lots but the fact that it was difficult to enforce residents from abusing them.

Since there were no lots available for visitors, naturally there were complaints. The Management Council tried their best to find ways to allocate some lots for visitors that would be easy to manage and not easy to abuse.

Thus, in December 2005, the Tiara Management Corporation created a visitor parking lot with 15 bays in the triangle area at the Queen’s Gate strictly for visitor parking. This was a closed lot opposite the guardhouse, thus making it convenient for the guard to manage and enforce. In addition, the Management Council also had to decide whether to charge, and how much. If the parking were free, potential abusers would find ways to park their vehicles there. Thus the Management Council decided to charge a minimal fee.

However, another complaint, other than having to pay for parking, was that this location was too far away from King’s Gate and only visitors for units near Queen’s Gate would use it.

Statistics have shown that this parking area is underused. Of the 15 lots, the average daily usage is 3 lots, with a maximum of 5 at any one time. Thus the Tiara Management Corporation decided to rent out some of these lots on a trial basis.

The Management Council continues to look for ways to make more parking available to residents and visitors. With limited space, the Council is looking at outside alternatives, perhaps leasing the piece of land outside Tiara along Jalan 17/1.

If residents would like to help, or have any suggestions please give your suggestions in writing to the Management Office, or email tmc33@streamyx.com, with your name and contact number.