Dubai's JLT to get 1,200 extra free parking slots

With almost all parking barriers activated in the different clusters of Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT), finding a suitable parking spot is keeping residents in frenzy.

But there is good news for the somewhat 25,000 residents of the community: 1200 free parking slots will be delivered by master developer Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC) in 2014.

A paid parking scheme was introduced to the community in 2012, when the first barriers came down, only to go up if the motorist was in possession of a parking permit for the cluster parking facility.

The scheme being phased out per cluster, the last barriers are currently activated, with the paid parking system almost entirely in place.

However, residents have complained of difficulty finding enough parking options for the sometimes more than one vehicle per household, as they depend for their parking options on the grace of the tower developer.

"Access to tower parking has always been and remains the responsibility of individual tower developers and owners associations," has the DMCC repeatedly stated when asked about the policy enacted, as the parking slots were purchased by these parties in bulk and to be distributed among the owners and residents.

In practice, this meant total discrepancy. While most households were allocated at least one parking slot, additional parking had to be purchased, with some developers pushing up prices as high as Dh100,000 per year.

Meanwhile, developers complained of illegal parking in the community. In a notice hung up by Damac , the developer warned: "We have noticed many of our residents are not following parking discipline and parking illegally in the drop off zone which are not meant for this purpose. This causes inconvenience to your fellow residents who have a genuine need to use the drop-off zone.

“As and when DMCC is made aware of any cars parked illegally, security is notified and if necessary, the matter is turned over to Dubai Police," commented DMCC when asked about the matter.

The statement continued: "Where possible, DMCC has introduced a parking permit option which gives permit holders access to DMCC-retained parking spaces in the garages. In addition to the parking available within the clusters DMCC has provided 650 free parking spaces with an additional 1200 coming this year.”

With that pretty much all has been said. Currently free of charge are the parking slots reserved for visitors. However, as soon as the scheme has been rolled out completely, these parking facilities will too come at a price and will be for short-time use only.

DMCC has made use of plots of land in between clusters, behind buildings etc. to provide with additional parking options free-of-charge. These parking spaces currently count 650 slots and will be increased with 1200 this year, explained a source familiar with the scheme.

It is unclear when and where the 1200 parking slots will be built, but it will surely come as good news to residents unwilling to fork out more money than their apartment might be worth.

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