Tiara Parking

Parking has always been a major issue in Tiara Damansara. Past issues of Tiara Times have had numerous articles and letters discussing this matter. The recent break-ins and vandalism of cars parked outside Tiara have made this matter even more urgent.

From the beginning, the Management has always been aware of this issue and made proposals or changes to alleviate this problem.

Initially, Management created new uncovered parking lots on one side of the road. It also took away all the covered visitor parking lots and rented them out to residents.

With this came complaints that there were no longer any parking bays for visitors, so Management created a whole new parking area for visitors in the triangular piece of land near Queen’s Gate.

Even this met with complaints that the Visitor’s Parking Lot was under-utilised and residents should be allowed to park there. There were also complaints that having the Visitors’ Lot at Queen’s Gate was unfair to residents near King’s Gate.

Thus, recently, the Council, after deliberations during the monthly TMC meetings, decided to create some parking lots for visitors near King’s Gate. The plan was to take back about five of the rental lots closest to King’s Gate (since they would be the easiest to monitor from the King’s Gate guardhouse) and convert them into parking bays for visitors. Five parking lots from the Queen’s Visitor Lot would then be taken to replace the five rental lots taken away. This would, naturally, result in some renters finding their original lots changing. Everyone, though, would still have a parking lot except that some might not have the same bay as before. To be expected there were complaints about the reshuffling.

There seems to be a misconception among renters of parking lots that once they have been allocated a parking lot, as long as they pay their dues, the parking lot is theirs to rent for as long as they want. We would hence request residents to read the Parking Lot Rental Agreements that were signed.

Please be thankful for a place to park within the premises compared to those who have to park outside.

There was also a complaint that: “consideration of residents should be first and foremost in any changes, not visitors. This creation of visitors’ parking lots is for the benefit of residents! As a full-facility condo­minium, Tiara Damansara should have certain facilities, among which is parking for visitors. What is a ‘home’ if your friends and family find it difficult to visit because of lack of parking?”

Whether the parking lots for visitors are under-utilised remains to be seen, but that is not the issue. Some parking lots must be available for visitors. The developer of Tiara originally allocated 40 covered lots for visitors!

Recently there were suggestions that residents be allowed to park in vacant visitor lots overnight. We are looking into implementing this suggestion.

Of course, the root of our parking woes is the lack of more available land within Tiara Damansara. For whatever reasons, the original developer only planned for 1 parking lot per unit, while most households these days have at least 2 cars, if not more.

The Management looked into the possibility of building a multi-storey car park where the present tennis court stands (with the court moved to the rooftop of the proposed car park). However, this proposal did not go through due to the high costs involved, in the millions of Ringgit.

The challenge for Management was to acquire more parking spaces. This resulted in the triangular area near Queen’s Gate converted into a parking lot.

Then Management discussed the possibility of converting the green lung on Jalan 17/1 into a parking lot. This proposal did not materialize due to vociferous and impassioned resistance shown by residents with units fronting the land bank. All emails received by Tiara Times were against the motion with not even one email against.

Our next (and possibly last) option is to get MBPJ to create legal parking lots along Jalan 17/1. Feedback from MBPJ has indicated that they might allow this only if Tiara foots the costs. Parking lots along Jalan 17/1 would, however, have the following two problems: Security – however this may be solved by guards patrolling outside along Jalan 17/1; Outsiders using the parking bay – staff /employees from the nearby office buildings might avail themselves of these lots. This, however, should be fine since these would utilise the lots during the day while Tiarans require them during the night. However, discussions are still on-going before this proposal gets the nod.

We would like feedback from residents on this parking issue. Your views and suggestions are most welcome. If you do not take this opportunity to do so, do not later complain about the situation or about decisions made by the Management Council. So do write in.

The Management will then study and deliberate the pros and cons of each suggestion before making any decisions.