By Majd Othman

KUWAIT: Finding a place to park has always been a challenge for tenants who live in densely-populated investment areas, but now the problem has reached residential and commercial areas, with no action taken towards it. Mariam Saeed, who lives in Hawally, told Kuwait Times her building doesn’t provide parking spaces for tenants, which causes her daily suffering searching for a nearby place to park.

“Because we park in any available place, our cars get damaged by the sun, especially during the summer. This costs us yearly to repair our cars, not to mention the random scratches,” she added. Most tenants have more than one car, and due to the lack of parking spaces in investment areas, some of them use their neighbors’ parking spaces, which increases conflicts between them. Ahmad Sameer, who lives in Farwaniya, said “in order to find a solution, our building haris held a draw to distribute the parking spaces among tenants, which gave us a temporary solution to the problem of parking violations by other tenants”.

Asmaa Hassan said she makes sure before renting an apartment that it has at least two parking spaces. “It is almost impossible to find two parking spaces in investment areas,” she said. “Even tenants who rent in residential areas face the same problem, which has affected our choices of apartments,” said Maha Haikal, who lives in Salwa. “We make sure there is an open yard nearby to park our cars, otherwise, we don’t rent the apartment,” she added.

“I offered my next-door neighbor KD 15 per month to rent his parking spot, because I am worried about my daughters parking far away and taking a long walk to the house,” said Zaher Al-Jamous, a father of two working daughters. “Before this, our building owner asked me to pay KD20 per month for one extra parking space despite the presence of extra parking spaces in the building.”

Rashed Ali, another tenant who lives in Salwa, told Kuwait Times that his residential building owner closed the car parking basement and turned it to a warehouse so he can benefit from renting it. “This happens all the time in residential and investment areas. We hope the Municipality takes action on this issue, especially since some owners store flammable materials in the basements, which could threaten the lives of tenants,” he added.

Fadi Al-Qeshawi, who works in the private sector, said his company is located in the capital area in a commercial tower, but they don’t have a parking space or a multilevel car parking nearby. “Employees who work in these towers have two options — either pay KD2.5 daily for valet parking, which means burdening themselves with KD65 per month, or park their cars in a faraway open area and ride a bus to take them to the tower,” he told Kuwait Times. He added they also face the threat of a parking ticket or license suspension if they park in an unauthorized area.

Anood Al-Mulla told Kuwait Times that commercial areas suffer from a parking crisis, especially in the capital area, wondering about the absence of the Municipality to force investment buildings to provide free car parking spaces for employees. “If the Municipality is struggling to provide spaces for cars to park, smart car parking is a perfect solution to save space and solve a real problem,” she suggested.

Traffic law

According to the General Traffic Department, article 42 of the traffic law states that it is permitted to suspense a driver’s license or vehicle registration with its plate number, or both, for a maximum period of four months in case of parking in places that are not designated for parking and disrupting the traffic flow. Kuwait Times tried to contact the Kuwait Municipality to ask about the reasons and solutions for the parking issue, but received no response.

A source in the interior ministry said their role is to apply the law on parking violators, mentioning the only body responsible for this issue is the Municipality. According to a study published in 2019 by the Real Estate Association in cooperation with Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, Kuwait needs 40 million sq m of space to resolve the parking issue, while the value of investment required is about KD 7 billion ($23 billion) to cover the current gap in parking.