Beijing: Resident-led parking management helps solve parking challenges in older residential communities.

Resident parking self-governance is the establishment of a parking self-governance organization in residential communities, according to the principles of "fairness, justice, and openness," jointly formulating a resident parking self-governance covenant, adopting a model of resident self-management or entrusted operation to achieve self-management, mutual service, and mutual supervision as a parking management method within the community.

Resident parking self-governance helps old residential communities solve parking difficulties.

The "Beijing Motor Vehicle Parking Regulations" stipulate that "Residential communities, under the guidance of residents' committees or villagers' committees, may establish parking self-governance organizations to implement self-management and self-service of parking within the community. Self-management services may charge certain fees to cover the costs of parking self-governance and parking facility construction. The collection and use of fees should be regularly disclosed within the community." In fact, residential communities are collectively owned properties and can be regarded as one big family, with each household as a member. Parking issues are solved through joint discussion and negotiation, with residents themselves becoming the main managers of parking issues in their community.

Generally, only old residential areas choose the parking self-governance management method. In recent years, newly built commercial housing communities are generally managed by property companies or entrusted professional parking management companies; however, older communities often face problems such as lack of management entities, few parking spaces, many conflicts, and complex property rights. The lack of management entities leads to issues like competition for parking spaces and external vehicles occupying community space. Therefore, parking self-governance management fills an important management gap in the parking industry, standardizes residents' parking order, prevents problems such as private installation of parking locks and occupation of fire lanes, and optimizes the overall environment of residential areas.

Resident parking self-governance is a refined and systematic work.

Resident parking self-governance requires systematic and in-depth planning and implementation, which can generally be divided into seven steps, including:

First, understand the baseline by conducting resident verification and parking statistics to obtain the real parking demand of local permanent residents and understand how many vehicles need parking in the community.

Second, plan and mark parking spaces to know the maximum number of parking spaces that can be set according to standards within the community. Adjust traffic flow within the community and improve necessary signs, markings, traffic safety facilities, and management equipment.

Third, find parking outlets for residents. Guided by goals and based on parking resource gaps, adopt sharing, tapping potential, construction, and other methods to solve the problem of increasing parking spaces.

Fourth, establish a parking self-governance organization, determine the structure and rules of the self-management committee. The parking self-management committee is suggested to consist of representatives of car-owning residents, non-car-owning residents, residents' committee, parking management company, and residents with financial expertise, with an odd number of members.

Fifth, formulate the parking self-governance association charter and parking management covenant to regulate parking behavior and standardize community parking management.

Sixth, implement differentiated management, including differentiated charging prices and parking management. Differentiated charging means different categories of residents are charged according to tiered price standards (property owners and permanent residents pay less than temporary or renting residents; residents pay less than visitors; visitors pay less than social vehicles). Differentiated parking management means different categories of residents enjoy different parking privileges within the community (in case of scarce parking resources, parking qualifications are prioritized).

Seventh, ensure daily work support. Dynamically adjust the community parking self-governance covenant to safeguard the achievements of parking self-governance.

Community residents need to jointly promote the orderly implementation of parking self-governance.

In communities implementing parking self-governance, residents have the rights to supervise parkers and managers in complying with the covenant, to be informed about parking fee income and expenditure, and to receive profit distribution. This includes supervising whether parkers park according to the self-governance covenant and pay parking fees, whether managers manage according to the covenant, whether parking fees are used for daily parking management, and the distribution of surplus parking fees. At the same time, residents also have the obligation to comply with the parking self-management association charter and the residents' self-governance covenant. Residents should follow the committee's rules of procedure, park according to the covenant, and pay parking fees.

Multiple parties participate to jointly solve parking difficulties.

Resident parking self-governance is the foundation for promoting parking management in old communities from nothing to something and for changing residents' parking payment awareness from 'willing to pay whatever amount' to 'paying what is needed for parking management.' Through parking self-governance, old community residents are guided to form proper parking payment awareness. After basic income security is obtained through parking self-governance for parking management and service operations, the parking self-governance association can promote three-dimensional parking transformation in old communities and increase parking supply according to demand.

The construction of three-dimensional parking facilities in old communities does not necessarily meet supply and demand gaps all at once, as this requires coordinating many residents and is difficult to achieve. The implementing entity is not necessarily only the property management company. The government, community, property management, and residents can all play their respective roles in three-dimensional parking in old communities. For example, it is appropriate for the government and community to jointly promote overall affairs, property management to be responsible for preliminary infrastructure, and residents to implement the final realization of three-dimensional parking in parts. This is a suitable model for promoting three-dimensional parking in old communities.

Operate only, no profit, continuously improve community parking management.

Xiaonanzhuang Community in Haidian Street, Haidian District, is located at the northwest corner of Suzhou Bridge, built in the early 1970s, a typical old community. Surrounded by other old communities with limited roadside parking resources, parking has always been a difficult problem in the community. In March 2018, under the leadership of the community party committee and guidance of the Haidian Parking Association, through democratic consultation, the Xiaonanzhuang Community Parking Management Self-Governance Committee was established. Community residents volunteered to undertake tasks such as household visits, parking space planning, fee management, and rule-making. Xiaonanzhuang Community became the city's first parking self-governance community that operates only and does not profit.

However, community parking self-governance management also requires charging certain parking fees to cover costs such as staff salaries, signs and markings, necessary traffic safety facilities, and parking management equipment construction and maintenance. After deducting community self-governance parking management costs from total parking fee income, the surplus is distributed as dividends to all residents. This May, the Xiaonanzhuang Community Self-Management Committee used the surplus to purchase 5 liters of cooking oil for 811 households, including both car-owning and non-car-owning residents. All income and expenditure are supervised by the community party committee, with transparent finances and regular disclosure to all residents.