Gangnam-gu District Mayor Kim Hyun-gi's community-focused administrative reforms are beginning to show tangible results.
Gangnam-gu will cut overnight fees at its off-street public parking lots by 50 percent starting Thursday, in a bid to ease the chronic parking shortage in residential neighborhoods. The initiative aims to make better use of public lots that sit largely empty at night, reducing inconvenience for residents without building new facilities.
The discount applies to 25 off-street public parking lots in Gangnam-gu and covers vehicles using the lots between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. the following morning. Electric vehicles and households with multiple children, which already qualify for existing discounts, may stack the new reduction on top. Monthly permit holders, however, are excluded. The reduced rate is applied automatically through unmanned payment machines and the district's integrated control center system.
The policy grew out of an analysis of actual usage data.
Daytime occupancy at Gangnam-gu's off-street public lots averaged 63.1 percent, while overnight occupancy was limited to 32.8 percent. For hourly parkers specifically, the daytime average was 43.7 percent, but that figure dropped to 12.2 percent at night and fell further to between 6 and 7 percent during the late-night hours of 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., leaving a large share of spaces empty.
The district concluded that opening those idle spaces to residents was far more efficient than building new lots, and decided to lower fees accordingly.
Gangnam-gu's off-street public lots are divided into four tiers, with per-five-minute rates of 400 won for tier 1, 300 won for tier 2, 200 won for tier 3, and 100 won for tier 4. The overnight discount applies to tiers 1 through 3.
For example, a driver parking at a tier-1 lot for 12 hours — from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next morning — will pay 28,800 won instead of the standard 57,600 won ($38).
The district expects the measure to significantly reduce illegal parking on residential side streets and lighten the overnight parking burden on residents. It is also being cited as a model of administrative innovation, as it makes efficient use of existing facilities without the large budget outlays and lengthy construction time that new parking lots would require.
"In residential areas, it can be hard to find a parking spot at night, yet many spaces at public off-street lots were sitting empty after dark," district mayor Kim said. "We intend to make the fee reduction at public off-street lots a practical solution to the local parking shortage."
"Going forward, we will continue to expand parking welfare that residents can feel in their daily lives, creating a more convenient living environment," he added.
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