resident parking - Court: Residential parking zone near children's hospital not allowed
The establishment of a resident parking zone around Hamburg-Altona Children's Hospital was unlawful. The Administrative Court granted the hospital's lawsuit against the March 2022 established parking zone, according to a spokesperson of the German Press Agency. The decision was made last Thursday, similar to a May judgment in which the court already declared the Grindelhof parking zone unlawful due to its size, which exceeded the permitted maximum of 1,000 meters in side length by 27 meters.
The decision regarding the Altona parking zone is not yet legally binding. The spokesperson stated that an appeal has been allowed.
In its Grindelhof judgment, the court criticized that the resident parking zone exceeded the permitted size of a maximum of 1,000 meters in side length. Against this judgment, the traffic authority has filed an appeal.
The hospital spokesperson could not yet say what the consequences of the new judgment would be, as the reasons for the judgment had not yet been made available.
The hospital had filed its lawsuit at the end of 2022. "Our employees can no longer find parking spaces due to the introduced resident parking, and this in turn blocks the recruitment of further specialized personnel," said Christiane Dienhold, the business manager of the Altona Children's Hospital. "Our families and the families of our little patients are also confronted with difficult conditions. We have demanded the abolition of parking zone A109 and are pleased that our claim has been granted."
Hamburg advocates for new size regulations for resident parking zones on a federal level
The general administrative regulation to the Road Traffic Regulation (StVO) currently provides for a size of 1,000 x 1,000 meters for resident parking zones, according to the spokesperson for the traffic authority. "Unfortunately, this size also often does not do justice to the geographical conditions and local needs of the people on site in Hamburg."
The city is therefore advocating at the federal level for a flexible legal framework, "to be able to adapt the zones more to the requirements on site and the living reality in the neighborhoods," he said.
Moreover, he emphasized that the court in the Grindelhof judgment only dealt with the specific extension of the resident parking zone and not with the parking space management as such.
The spokesperson from the German Press Agency reported that the Administrative Court in Hamburg ruled against the resident parking zone around the Altona Children's Hospital, echoing their May judgment against a similar zone in Grindelhof. Despite the court's decision, an appeal has been allowed, making the judgement not yet legally binding.
