Model Housing Estate in North Point: the government has frozen parking prices at hundreds of its housing estates across the city

Citing a sluggish market, the Housing Authority (HA) will freeze its car park fees for the second year running, pinning prices for some 31,600 spaces at January 2019 levels until 31 December 2021 and keeping parking free for electric vehicles.

The charges were last raised in 2018, when the price of a private car parking space increased around 6%, to between HK$1,220 and HK$2,890 a month for spaces depending on location and whether covered or open. That’s as low as 40% of a typical monthly car park in Hung Hom.

Parking is in short supply in many areas, with pavements and footpaths providing a free alternative

“Our market research indicates that both the monthly and hourly car park charges of most of the comparable car parks in 2020 have been maintained at the 2019 level, and that HA’s current car park charges for all vehicle types are in general within the range of comparable car park charges at the market level,” a spokesman for the HA said.

In 2018, when the current prices were assessed, HA had said “prices would still be below the level of the majority of car parks in comparable sectors.”

HA also extended its 75% rent concession for commercial vehicles until 31 March 2021, as part of the government’s community relief measures in response to the pandemic.

Electric vehicles will still enjoy up to two hours’ free parking a day while charging, a concession launched as a pilot scheme in June 2012 and renewed every year since. Utility firms are extended a nominal licence fee of HK$1 per year for providing charging facilities at HA car parks in 2021.

LegCo to study parking issues

Separately, lawmaker Ben Chan Han-pan has proposed setting up a LegCo subcommittee on parking spaces in Hong Kong. “At the end of February 2019, there were 780,978 licensed vehicles in Hong Kong but only about 758,643 paring spaces,” he wrote in a letter to Transport Panel chair Frankie Yick Chi-ming.

The new subcommittee was approved and will study measures to boost the number of parking spaces, with recommendations made to the House Committee or Transport Panel within 12 months.