Vehicular Use Area (VUA)

Landscape codes also contain design standards for vehicular use area shading. VUA interiors may include medians, tree planters, islands, peninsulas and internal walkways. Standards for VUA shading ensures that parking lots include areas that can be planted with trees. Communities’ desire parking lots planted with trees, shrubs and ground covers to cut down on the expanse of pavement, soften the stark nature of concrete or asphalt and to provide shade to cool the temperature and filter the air.

Most communities write standards for internal tree planting areas based upon a percentage of the paved area, often 5% to 20% of the size of the lot.  Other communities write standards based upon the number of parking spaces, others based upon the distribution of shade. It is typical to require on tree for a prescribed number of parking spaces and to ensure that all parking spaces are within a prescribed number of feet of a shade tree. The general rule is the larger a parking lot becomes, the number of trees increase. Small parking lots for instance may have one tree for every twelve (12) spaces, while a large lot with several hundred parking spaces may have one tree for every eight (8) spaces.  Some communities write parking lot landscape standards that use all of these methods to determine how best to design parking lots. Few communities write standards for car sorting which is a very good way to increase the number of parking spaces without increasing the amount of paving. Car sorting can reward those that drive eco-friendly automobiles.