Parking In Japan - Questions

[shiro240]

Hi guys,

This is my first post on this board although some of you may recognize my name from the 7tune forums. I'm moving to Western Chiba shortly and have some questions regarding parking in fairly urbanized areas.

First off, a bit of background regarding my situation. I'm going to work for a smaller English school that has their own apartment complex, but does not offer any sort of parking with the contract (since they deem driving not necessary for the job). I, however, would like a car to be able to drive and go the places I want without having to depend on public transport.

In short, I'm curious to know if this is a fairly common practice to not offer parking or somewhat rare? Secondly, if this common and other people have had to deal with the same sort of thing, what sort of options did you look at for parking and what are fairly typical monthly costs?

Cheers,

Steve aka "shiro240"

[Rezz]

Hi Steve You finally joined up here...

Not offering parking spaces is what happens all the time, you have to go look for parking spaces yourself (within a 3km radius of your apartment if I recall correctly) and generally these are privately owned parking areas which you rent a space on a monthly basis. Sometimes in newer apartment blocks there will be a space allocated for your apartment, but you still have to pay extra in order to use that space. The only way out of it is if you live in a proper detached house with it's own garage or driveway, or park on the street somewhere.

The monthly costs depend on the area, for example a space on the outskirts of the city or in less desirable areas will be cheap (under 10,000 yen/month), right up to fully secure with nightwatchmen, service garage (yes free services) and keycard entry multi storey parking for around 100,000 - 200,000yen/month for all the hiRollaz... on average though between 10,000 - 20,000yen/month is what to expect in the city areas.

[Wojski]

well I recently move to Japan, also was not offered parking with my apprartment. Im am on Kyushu island f*kuoka prefecture. It is not too hard to get a parking lot, although liek anythign else in Japan there seems to be exvessive paper work required for anything lol. Just head out to your closest real estate agent, majority of them lease car parks and can supply a parking shomei (piece of paper you will need to register car). If your looking at registering your car you will need to prove you have a parking space within a 2km radius of your residence.

Now registering your car can be a bitch! First get a parking lot and when you get the Shomei for that you will need to go to your local Police station which will then approve that your parking lot is within a 2km radius of your residence! This can take a couple of days.....furthermore to get this approved you will need a copy of your cars Shaken certificate so the police can sight it to approve that your car is legal and can be parked in your pakring lot! You will also need a small scale map which shows both your residence and your parking lot so they can see it is within 2km. Ummm....what else. Oh yes when you register your car you will need your Alien Registration card which can take about 2weeks to process. However you can get a receipt if you pay extra which basically does the same job as the alien reigstration card. You will also need an Inkan (signature stamp) which you will also need to register at your local city hall so you have an Inkan shomei (another piece of coloured paper from city hall) so that the registration office can identify that the inkan is yours! Registration process takes about 1 to 2hours and costs about 5000-10000yen.

This is Kyushu, it may be diffeerent else where.

my ￥２

[Wojski]

oh and my parking lot is a 2min walk from my apprtment and costs ￥10，000 per month!

[Rezz]

Ah yes... the police confirming your parking space... haha they didn't even bother with me (this was in Ashiya), they're supposed to go out and 'sight' the space in person but many don't I assume.

[shiro240]

  Wojski said:

oh and my parking lot is a 2min walk from my apprtment and costs ￥10，000 per month!

Wow...that sounds...uhh...really painfree.

[Rezz]

I thought it was painful having my parking space around the back of my building...

[Wojski]

lola anythign that dont cost pain is good! but unfortunately its a pain in the ass! lola. Oh yes changed the rego over to my name this morning! get a load of this! there are 3 buildings! i go to one to do some paperwork, the send me to the next to do some more, (45minutes) the send me to the third to take off my plates and surrender the existing number plates on the car) I then go to the 1st building again for more paperwork, then again to the 2nd to approve my paperwork and then sent to the 3rd building for one last final time to sign off get your number plates get 5guys to check that the chassis number on the shaken paperwork is the same as the car, and then 3guys to put the rear number plate on because of the special bolt and cap they use so it can be seen if it has been tampered with. once its on you have to break it to get it off! 2hours later I drive away with new number plates and a piece of paper approving the car now legally belongs to me lol!

Edited September 19, 2006 by Wojski

[Edge]

At least it doesn't sound like there are very big queues to deal with.

[DCD]

  Edge said:

At least it doesn't sound like there are very big queues to deal with.

I live in Ichikawa and I get a "free" parking space with my apartment and I pay for an additonal one. Used to pay 9,000 a month but just got it discounted to 7,000....not bad I think. I'd say that about 35-40 % of the places you will look at in the Funabashi area will have parking and 98% of those will be further out from the station/center. In Tokyo it can get really expensive, I've heard of 70,000 x month x car in the newer hi-rise buildings. That IMO is daylight robbery. Might as well go around to your fudosan, drop your pants, bend over and let him take you every which way he can LOL

[sh@un]

eeek

no wonder public transport is so well co-ordinated in japan

[Beer Baron]

well 70,000 yen a month does sound bad. but consider that casual parking in my building at work is $56 per day and leasing a spot is around $200 per week then 70,000 a month for a spot in Tokyo seems not that bad.