Death to the Basement: Cost, Time, Demand Drive Underground Parking Rethink

Australia’s housing affordability crisis has a hidden villian—and it’s sitting underground. As fuel costs climb and car ownership comes under scrutiny, the price of providing basement parking has skyrocketed. In 2020, one such space was estimated to cost $40,000 per apartment. By 2025, a Queensland Productivity Commission report put that figure at $120,000. Updated figures from Slattery this year suggest this could now be closer to $130,000. But planning settings are beginning to shift. The Victorian Government scrapped car parking requirements for transport-oriented areas last year, while Brisbane City and the City of Sydney are moving to reduce or remove such requirements. Increasingly, the question is whether parking provision should be dictated by policy or left to market demand. This reflects global changes where cities such as London are trending towards low or no parking, prioritising car-free housing in well-connected areas. Car ownership attitudes are also changing, accelerated by the short-term rise in cost of fuel and the rise of electric vehicles in Australia, where sales were up 24.4 per cent to 72,758 in 2025. It all begs the question, is car parking, especially in basements, a ‘must-have’ or a thing of the past? Driving costs Specialist developer Novus’s approved build-to-rent project at Chatswood with a single car sharing space reflects these shifts. According to Novus co-founder Jason Goldsworthy, the project’s location, less than 50m from a Metro station, bus interchange and heavy rail, makes car ownership less essential. ▲ Novus on Victoria, next to Chatswood Metro station, has only just one car share space. “There’s no resident car parking, which makes it a fantastic example, and consistent with overseas examples of best-in-class, transit-orientated developments,” Goldsworthy says. Slattery director James Dennis says that basements are a major cost driver for developments, adding significant time on site. “For large projects they can account for roughly 10 to 25 per cent of total construction costs, depending largely on how much parking is required,” Dennis says. “It’s also where the largest time and cost risks usually sit on a project, simply because you can never know with absolute certainty what you’ll encounter once you begin to dig.” Car parking and feasibilities Reducing traffic, time on site and neighbourhood concerns over developments, basements can make or break a development at several stages of the planning process. “Construction in any location is going to be a burden to neighbours, so the quicker you can get through the build and the quicker you can have a brand new operational building makes a difference,” Goldsworthy says. Dennis says that basement car parking, especially when supplied at a 1:1 ratio, can make a considerable impact on feasibilities. ▲ While build-to-rent buyers expect a certain level of amenity, car parking might not be on the list. “That cost has to be recovered, so it inevitably flows through to the sale price along with other on-costs of delivering those spaces,” Dennis says. “The real question is whether the market wants or needs the car parks and is willing to pay for them. If buyers value the parking, the cost effectively washes its face. If not, car parking can become a handbrake on project feasibility and ultimately on housing supply. “Planning authorities ultimately decide what parking ratios are supported, so flexibility in those controls can play an important role in enabling projects to respond to market demand.” Typology and car parking However, removing parking entirely is not suitable for every project. Australia’s heavy reliance on cars means expectations vary by product type. Goldsworthy says build-to-rent can be better suited to lower parking provision. A Novus project in Melbourne includes just 25 spaces for 170 apartments—and two remain unused. “People are opting to live in a building where they don’t actually own a car,” Goldsworthy says. “This puts the choice back with the future resident. “It’s not for everyone and it might be a different story for a build-to-sell project, where there’s an underlying expectation that if a buyer is going to spend a couple of million dollars on an apartment, there should be a car space with it.” ▲ Slattery director James Dennis. But as the Australian market matures further, he says, there will be an increasing number of developments with little to no car parking. Developers are inevitably responsive to buyer demand, Dennis says. “What we’re observing across the projects we’re involved in is that build-to-sell apartments, particularly higher-end products, still tend to include relatively high parking ratios, often close to one space per apartment or more,” he says. “Build-to-rent developments are typically delivering lower ratios, often between 0.2 and 1 space per apartment, particularly where projects are well located for public transport.” Symonds says that inevitably developers will follow the market and market demands, and if buyers want cars, developments will include parks. “But forcing people into having them is just costing everyone,” he says. Policy and planning Policy flexibility is critical. Planning authorities often hyperfocus on car parking spaces within developments to alleviate congestion and limited city street parking. Dennis says that while costs vary significantly depending on the site, Slattery calculates those costs are around $90,000 to $130,000 for basement parking, and $60,000 to $100,000 per apartment for podium parking. “One way to lower construction costs and potentially build cheaper apartments is to have those car parking spaces come out of the ground,” Symonds says. “Although I’m a proponent of having activated podiums, there is less risk, it takes less time building a podium, and that saving is passed back on to the ultimate buyer.” ▲ With only one car space, Novus on Victoria could have an activated podium without sacrificing space to parking. But one of the biggest effects of basement digging is environmental. “Digging a basement is bloody wasteful,” says Symonds. “You have trucks and excavators there, digging away earth and soil and transporting it to another site and dumping it. It is CO2 intensive and uses a ton of fuel, so going up also makes more sense.” Dennis adds that underground parking can significantly increase a project’s embodied carbon. “In many projects, emissions associated with underground parking can be more than double those of above-ground parking solutions,” he says. With the gradual shift away from strict minimum parking requirements and towards flexible and market-led approaches, developers should sit up and take note.

Death to the Basement: Cost, Time, Demand Drive Underground Parking Rethink

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Death to the Basement: Cost, Time, Demand Drive Underground Parking Rethink

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