A car parking battle has broken out in Central Auckland.

Businesses in Grafton have complained that ever since the Daisy apartment building opened, staff and customers are having to compete with residents for spaces on the street.

It's because the Daisy apartment building was purposely built with no car parks.

Mark Todd, co-founder of Ockham Residential, which developed Daisy, told Heather du Plessis-Allan that the carpark issue was debated in public for two years before the building opened, and as a result of that, the decision was made that carparks weren't required in "high value" locations with public transport options. 

"That was the time to have this argument. It's a bit late now."

He says he has sympathy that there is street congestion, but the city is changing and Auckland has aligned itself with other cities of similar size. 

"There's no carpark standards in Sydney or Melbourne or the ring suburbs."

Todd says that it's not a policy that they don't build carparks with their buildings, but where there are 

"We're leading at the front of that, and we are prepared to take the risk and build apartments without car parks."

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