Tag:parking=garage_boxes

A parking facility composed of fully enclosed individual units. Because these boxes are intended to protect their content (vehicles) and to restrict access to a limited number of users, this type of parking is rarely public. Each compartment is usually assigned to a single owner or tenant. This type of parking can be found:

• in small numbers (one to three units) attached to a residential property, or
• in large rows, often near (or in the basement of) private residential buildings or large housing complexes.

However, facilities of this type are sometimes being offered to the general public for short-term or hourly rental, with access controlled through smartphone applications.

If the parking spaces are not fully enclosed but simply consist of a roof and one to three walls, consider using parking=carports or parking=sheds instead.

How to map

Draw an representing the area occupied by the parking facility and tag it with amenity=parking + parking=garage_boxes.

It is recommended to map the total area covered by the boxes, even when they are physically separate from one another.

Alternatively, a simple may be used instead of an area, tagged with amenity=parking + parking=garage_boxes, or with amenity=parking_entrance + parking=garage_boxes.

Parking or building

There can be uncertainty whether to map a row of individual garages as a building=garage (or building=garages), or as amenity=parking + parking=garage_boxes.

These two approaches describe different aspects:

• the first one (building=*) maps a physical structure without necessarily implying its use. Areas mapped this way will usually not be recognised as parking facilities by parking-related applications. This approach allows all attributes relevant to a physical building (construction_date=*, height=*, building:architecture=*, etc.).
• the second one (parking=*) maps an explicit parking use without describing the physical structure. It can be used in indoor mapping for basement garage boxes. This approach allows all attributes relevant to parking (fee=*, capacity=*, etc.).

Both representations may coexist (either two superimposed s—depending on whether the boxes occupy the whole building or only part of it—or an for the building and an for the parking).

In practice, since few parking=garage_boxes are publicly accessible, attributes such as fees or capacity are often of limited interest, and these facilities are more commonly mapped as building=garages than as amenity=parking + parking=garage_boxes.

Partially boxed parking areas

Example: a residential parking area where 20 spaces are open and 6 are individual boxes.

In such cases, an alternative approach is to map the entire parking area using standard parking tags (amenity=parking + parking=surface or parking=street_side), and then add building=garage or building=garages for the individual boxed units.

Commonly used tags

As with most parking facilities:

• access=private, very common for this type of parking
• name=*
• operator=*
• access=*
• fee=*
• supervised=*
• capacity=*
• capacity:disabled=*, rare but possible
• wheelchair=*