This small carpark is the most contested battleground in New Zealand

Fewer than 50 parks. At least 30 signs. Three full-time parking wardens. Two shops who refuse to cede a millimetre of ground.

Mahmood Hikmet knew something was weird as soon as he turned into the Manukau carpark shared by Tile Deals and Lotus Supermarket. A man in a high-vis vest walked up to his car and motioned for him to wind down his window. “Which business are you here for? Are you going to the supermarket?” the man asked. He seemed caught off-guard that Hikmet was actually there for the tiles. “I got the impression he’d spent the entire day stopping people who were trying to go to the supermarket and had simply assumed we were another one,” Hikmet told The Spinoff.

Hikmet was directed to the set of yellow-painted parks. The whole car park only contains 48 spots but on his way, he saw three high vis-clad wardens directing people to the right location. He passed at least 10 more signs, large and small, all of them delivering the same message. “Important notice. Yellow line car park for Tile Deals customers only. Tow away zone,” they read.

Hikmet didn’t end up getting any tiles. But the car park has remained a source of curiosity. Every time he’s driven past for the last few years, it’s been the same story: wardens directing traffic at all hours of the day. Cars lining up to get into their assigned parks, the resulting queues sometimes stretching down busy Cavendish Drive. “Weekend? They’re there. Middle of the day on a Wednesday? They’re there. Car park practically empty? Still there,” said Hikmet.

He has so many questions, most of them economic. “Surely employing multiple people to guard parking spaces costs more than whatever those spaces are worth? How many additional tiles do you need to sell each week just to fund the Tile Deals Parking Defence Force?” he asked.

To get the answers, The Spinoff headed over to the Tile Deals and Lotus Supermarket car park one afternoon in October. The parking process was exactly as Hikmet described. A man in high-vis was immediately at the car window upon entry, asking for an intended destination and delivering instructions on where to go. Dozens of red and yellow signs were scattered around. 

The first high-vis warden, stationed outside Lotus Supermarket, wasn’t willing to explain the situation. But another outside Tile Deals said the tile shop had employed him full-time as a parking warden for two years. He said the supermarket also employed two full-time wardens to police its parks. Though he gets into disputes with customers, he denied his job was about taking money from them. “I've only towed five cars this whole time I've been here,” he said.

Inside Tile Deals, co-owner Maha Deep shed more light on the situation. He insisted the intense policing wasn’t born of animosity. This wasn’t a Mt Albert BBQ Noodle House versus Mt Albert BBQ Noodle House situation. He even lets the supermarket use his parks when his store is closed after 5pm weekdays and 3pm on Sundays. “I know them. We talk to each other and it’s all cordial,” he said.

Though the supermarket didn’t respond to queries, one man working in the aisles inside confirmed the two stores weren’t at war. Instead what everyone described was more like a desperate defensive effort. Lotus Supermarket is so popular, it’s frequently overrun. Deep said customers would regularly tell him they’d like to come into the tile store but wouldn’t because they were worried about not getting a park. “They call me like, ‘sorry, we have to buy things from someone else’.”

It felt like Deep should just sell the supermarket some of his unneeded parks. But he wasn’t keen on that solution. He was experiencing visions of an ever-encroaching tide; an endless stream of cars from which there would be no relief. “Even if I sell them five parks, they will take 10. There’s no limit. Five is not going to help them. They need the whole site,” he said.

Instead he’s left paying people to stand outside his store every single hour it’s open, telling supermarket customers to go away. He’s put up signs in every available location; at both park entrances, outside his store, by the parks themselves. The supermarket is doing the same to avoid upsetting its neighbours. Fifty car parks, endless expenses. Everyone unhappy, together.

How could that be economically sustainable though? Tile Deals and Lotus both seemed to be decent businesses, but our economy isn’t famous for being back on track and it’s got to be a huge bill employing full-time workers to police roughly 25 car parks each. The answer seemed to be that it wasn’t sustainable. Tile Deals was in trouble. Deep knew it. He knew the supermarket needed the whole site. But he was locked into a lease and couldn’t get out. “When the lease comes up for renewal, we'll definitely be looking at a different property,” he said. 

But that wasn’t for years. Instead of a strange story about neighbours at war, this seemed to be a small urban nightmare. Deep couldn’t remember when the parking troubles even began. They’d been going on for as long as he could remember. No end was in sight. He was trapped, bleeding money in either salaries or lost customers. Every day people were being repelled by the vehicular horde. Two businesses. Forty-eight car parks. Dozens of signs. One shared hell.