LTA prescribes the parking provision standards and requirements for motor vehicles and bicycles. The requirements are usually based on the quantum of the gross floor area or the number of units of the development uses.
Under LTA’s Range-based Parking Provision Standards (RPPS), developments are subject to car and motor-cycle1 parking provision requirements.
Unless explicitly approved as private parking lots in the approved plans, all car and motor-cycle parking lots shall be treated as common property.
1 Motor-cycle parking provision is mandatory in all non-residential developments.
The RPPS allows developments to provide any level of car and motor-cycle parking provision within a specified range, defined by a lower bound and an upper bound – see figure below. The range varies according to location zones and land uses. Details may be found in LTA’s Code of Practice for Vehicle Parking Provision in Developments.
Range-based Parking Provision Standards
New commercial and mixed use2 developments shall be subject to a process of waiver evaluation by LTA, if one wishes to provide surplus car and motor-cycle parking lots, ie parking provision above the upper bound based on the new RPPS.
If LTA approves the waiver, each surplus car parking lot shall be computed as 35sqm GFA, that being the average area of a car parking lot inclusive of circulation space. Each surplus motor-cycle parking lot shall be computed as 12sqm GFA.
Additional GFA arising from the surplus car and motor-cycle parking lots may be subject to SLA levying Land Betterment Charge, where applicable.
2 Developments with commercial and/or hotel components that form more than 20% of the total GFA
Existing commercial developments within the Central Area (PDF, 1.02 MB) or within 400m of MRT and LRT stations may be allowed to permanently convert their surplus car parking lots3 to other uses.
LTA may consider conversion of car parks up to the lower bound as stipulated in the RPPS. Interested building owners are to arrange for a pre-application consultation with LTA before submitting a development application to URA.
The conversion of surplus car park may be allowed subject to compliance with ALL of the following:
Additional GFA gained via the conversion of surplus car parking spaces shall not be taken into consideration in determining the maximum permissible intensity that may be allowed for the re-development of the site.
Where surplus car parking spaces were allowed by LTA through a waiver application to exceed the upper bound of the Range-based Parking Provision Standards (RPPS) after 1 Feb 2019, the development will not be allowed to convert any of the surplus car parking spaces to other uses.
3 With the RPPS, surplus car parking lots in existing developments may arise if the upper bound for the development type is revised downward and/or if developments choose to reduce car parking provision to the lower bound set out by the RPPS.
Conversion of Surplus Car Parking Spaces within Central Area
In line with the planning intention to encourage conversion of office developments to Residential, Hotel and other mixed uses within the CBD, only applications for conversion of existing surplus car parking spaces to non-office uses (see examples in the table below) will be considered in selected areas where CBD Incentive Scheme applies.
For the rest of the Central Area, conversion of surplus car parking spaces to non-office uses is also highly encouraged, in line with the planning intention to inject more live-in population in the city.
a. Residential b. Shops e.g. minimart, laundrette, hair salons, etc. c. Clinics d. Restaurants e. Indoor farms f. Gymnasium /Fitness centres g. Childcare centres h. Commercial schools
4 This is not an exhaustive list. Allowable uses will be subject to planning evaluation and will therefore vary from site to site.
To promote a car-lite society, commercial and mixed use developments shall provide bicycle parking facilities within the developments. Refer to LTA’s Code of Practice for Vehicle Parking Provision in Developments here for the list of requirements.
Unless explicitly approved as private parking lots in the approved plans, all bicycle parking lots shall be treated as common property.
Bicycle parking lots provided according to LTA’s new standards are exempted from GFA computation. Surplus provision of bicycle parking lots may be exempted from GFA computation depending on merits and context of the development.
We advise all building owners, developers and QPs to refer to the Loading Bay Design and Operations Best Practice Guide when developing new commercial buildings or when redeveloping existing commercial buildings, especially for buildings with large retail components.
This guide provides information, best practices and recommendations regarding the design and operation of the loading bays within commercial buildings, to achieve the following objectives:
In cases where it is difficult to adhere to the good practice for the design and operation of the loading bays, we encourage buildings owners to explore other means to achieve the same design and operation principles.
The Best Practice Guide supplements the technical agencies’ prevailing Code of Practices, requirements or design standards, which should take precedence.
As part of Enterprise Singapore’s mandate to help retail buildings grow through capability upgrading and business transformation, a grant support scheme is in place for building owners to adopt the use of dock scheduling/booking and queue management system to manage the loading bays, subject to its approval. These grants are subject to reviews by the overseeing agencies and may undergo changes without prior notice. Applicants can write in to Enterprise Singapore to enquire.
Last updated on 20 February 2023