Hamburg is accommodating to complaining companies

Parking space in big cities is scarce. In Hamburg, the Senate is trying to alleviate the shortage by increasing the number of residential parking areas - at least for the residents. A good 40 new parking zones have been added since 2020, in which maximum parking times now apply and parking fees are usually also due. The number of resident parking zones has thus tripled.

But what simplifies the search for a parking space for residents in the mostly inner-city popular districts makes it an almost unsolvable problem for the employees of local shops, medical practices, businesses and companies. This has been causing a massive dispute in the Hanseatic city for more than a year - even in politics.

Because: Employees of nearby shops, craft businesses or clinics cannot apply for resident parking permits, so they have to pay fees if they want to come by car and move their vehicle every few hours in order not to exceed the maximum parking time.

The Chamber of Commerce and Crafts and many affected institutions have been critical and have therefore been loudly demanding solutions to the problem since the massive expansion of the resident parking zones. The Altona Children's Hospital is even currently suing the city.

On Tuesday, the traffic authority made a proposal for a solution. Companies, companies and institutions such as hospitals can apply for special permits for employees who have to travel to work outside of subway hours (1 a.m. to 4.30 a.m.). Employees and local residents can then use them to park indefinitely in the zone.

The shift has to start before 6 a.m. - and the ID cards are not issued to the individual employees, but issued to the companies and institutions as an "adjusted contingent".

In doing so, the authority is using a loophole in the road traffic regulations, which do not allow special permits for individual employees, but provide regulations for vehicles used by craft businesses, for example.

Just like the craft businesses are already doing for special permits, the other businesses will also have to pay 250 euros for each permit and year in the future. The permits do not then apply to individual vehicles, but can be distributed to the employees who work the night or early shift.

The traffic authority, led by Green politician Anjes Tjarks, justifies its accommodation, among other things, with the fact that the resident parking zones have generally been successful. The utilization of the parking spaces in the areas has dropped significantly in some cases. The authority had had the parked cars counted in the Schlump zone in Eimsbüttel and in St. Georg.

The investigation showed that the utilization of parking spaces at Schlump has fallen from 103 percent to 88 percent. The district came to 103 percent because many cars were illegally parked there outside of the actual parking spaces. This freed up space to create special permits for shift workers.