Can a shareholder stay on the waitlist for a parking spot even if they don’t have a car?

Every building handles parking differently, and your board should rely on your building’s bylaws, house rules, and any existing policies to determine how your waitlist should work. But it’s worth remembering: Just because a resident doesn’t have a car now, doesn’t mean they won’t by the time they reach the top of your list.

A shareholder may be putting off purchasing a car until they have a place to put it, given the limited parking spots in New York City. (And it’s likely new buildings will have fewer spots under NYC’s ambitious housing plan.)

Plus, condos and co-ops usually don’t mandate that residents have a car to remain on a parking waitlist, said Samantha Sheeber, managing partner at law firm Starr Associates.

“It's typically assumed that if you're looking to buy or rent [a space], that you have a car, but if someone's putting themselves on the waitlist in anticipation, typically there aren’t restrictions that you actually have to have a car,” Sheeber said.

Ways to cull the list

If you’re worried about the waitlist getting too long, your board could ask every shareholder on it if they still want to be included, said Will Kwan, a managing partner at board EZ Election Solutions, which advises buildings on elections and annual meetings. 

Kwan, who sits on his Murray Hill co-op’s board, said his board used this method to keep the list up to date. But because it can take almost two years for residents to reach the top of that queue, he says shareholders remain on the list regardless of whether or not they have a car. 

“We don't take people off because they don't have a car,” Kwan said. “They may park elsewhere, or they may transition to a car” at a later date.

How other co-ops handle parking

Adelaide Polsinelli, a Compass broker and former board president of her Greenwich Village co-op, said buildings do sometimes require residents to own a car to be on a parking waitlist. 

But if a resident wanted to get around this rule, they could simply say they had a car—and then pay close attention to when a spot could become available.

“In the few instances where this occurs, I don’t think anyone’s checking,” Polsinelli said. “But when that spot comes up, they’re not going to wait for you to go buy a car and then come back and take the spot.”

Polsinelli’s building got rid of its parking waitlist altogether after the pandemic subsided because after the commercial operator of her building’s garage stopped offering discounted spots to residents.