Two goes into one in these parks

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

A car-parking system which accommodates "two cars where normally only one would go" has attracted the interest of businesses and councils in Auckland.

Car Parking Solutions uses German hydraulic units to stack cars vertically, thereby freeing up land required for traditional car parks.

The system, made by the Wohr company in Stuttgart, stores cars weighing up to 2.5 tonnes each.

It ranges from the basic two-car stacker to a multi-level outdoor tower holding perhaps 200 cars.

The automatic system can, for example, park 59 cars within a 49 sq m area. The cars are parked and accessed in minutes by remote control.

CPS installed its first stacker yesterday, a two-car unit at Auckland car dealer Jerry Clayton.

"This technology is at its absolute infancy stage in New Zealand but it is going to change the way we park," said CPS director Bob Haswell.

"We have in most main centres a shortage of space for adequate parking. The availability and cost of desirable land is becoming restrictive, so we have to better utilise space.

"The cost of a single car park in the main centres averages $28,000. We have to change the way we think and provide for parking."

Nelson-based Haswell started the company last year, after selling his luxury South Island fishing lodge and spending time overseas.

"I noticed the car-stacking systems in Asia and Europe and considered that New Zealand was ready for what has become standard parking methods internationally," he said.

"The Wohr system itself has created more than 250,000 parking spaces throughout the world."

Haswell got the distribution rights to the Wohr stackers from CPS parent in Melbourne and is using Auckland company Grayson Engineering to install them. Grayson Engineering helped to build the Sky Tower.

Haswell said the main challenge he faced in New Zealand was getting in at the construction stage of new buildings.

"It's simple enough to outline the advantages of the stacking system to architects, developers, builders and designers and so on.

"A new apartment block can simply be changed to provide double the parking that is traditionally allowed.

"The price starts at $18,000 for the two-car unit. A $500,000 apartment can have parking for two for that."

Haswell said the stackers met the highest technical and engineering standards and CPS hadn't received any objections from the insurance industry to their use.

"There has never been a problem with a faulty unit in the 40 years the Wohr company has been making them," he said.

His ultimate CPS aim?

"To see a glass tower in central Auckland providing parking for 200 cars, using just 150sq m of land."