Vehicular use areas consist of parking lots, driveways, loading areas, interior roadways, drive through service areas and any part of a site plan that vehicles are allowed to roll. Vehicular use areas generally occupy the largest portion of any building site. Space for parking lots often exceeds the area required for the building footprint. Since vehicular use areas dominate so much of the development site and are largely responsible for so much tree removal they are an important concern of community tree ordinances and landscape codes.
The largest problem with community design is often how to effectively design parking lots. All building sites are designed, by landscape architects, architects, or engineers using standardized building or development codes. This insures that parking lots, access ways, loading areas, turning radius, ADA access are designed to uniform widths and standards across the country. In addition, parking lots must be designed to accepted standards for drainage, pedestrian circulation and slope. With out such standards specified in the landscape codes parking lots would vary widely from place to place and from site to site.
The second most common reason communities draft a landscape codes is to set standards for good design by screening views of parked cars, introducing comfortable shade and producing interior plantings to better organized traffic within vehicular use area. Good community design means good parking lot design. A well designed parking lot will be designed based upon efficient circulation, maintenance and a reasonable ratio of permeable and impermeable area. Travel lanes, parking bays, parking stalls and interior islands, peninsulas and medians must all be designed according to an efficient pattern. A well designed parking lot will consider safe pedestrian traffic from car to building and safe automobile passage from entry to exit. Pedestrian and auto conflict must be eliminated by good design practices.
