Council’s night parking ‘money grab’
DEWI COOKE
May 11, 2010
Rob Healy puts money in a parking meter before going out for dinner at a city restaurant. Photo: Paul Rovere
LATE-NIGHT citygoers will kiss free car parking goodbye under a proposal by the City of Melbourne to extend metered parking times until midnight.
Visitors will be asked to pay a flat rate of $4 from 7.30pm.
The council has defended the plan, saying it will help fund municipal services after dark as Melbourne continues its push towards being a ”24-hour city”.
The move will also help the council recoup revenue lost after parking at Yarra Park was transferred to the Melbourne Cricket Club.
The council says the move will raise about $1.9 million in extra fees. It expects a further $1.3 million next year from parking fines, thanks to ”efficiencies” and a CPI-based rise in fines.
Lord mayor Robert Doyle said the new night parking fees would affect about 3000 on-street spaces and would be used to help pay for services. He said council data showed the city was still active well past midnight.
”These will be an extension of hours, not an increase in levies,” he said. ”We would say that now we have 750,000 people a day coming into the city and 300,000 people a night coming into the city, we need to make sure they are safe and services are provided for them.”
But Don Parsons, secretary of the Melbourne Business Council, slammed the proposal as a money grab. ”If you’re coming in to watch Fame at the Regent or Sir Ian McKellen who’s performing at the Comedy and you might have used street parking because there’s no fee attached to it, now you’re going to have to pay a fee or go into a parking station. It’s a device working against the city,” he said.
Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry spokesman Chris James agreed any move that might deter visitors to the city would be a worry. ”We would be concerned about the impact that would have on city restaurants and bars and that it would be a deterrent for customers coming to the city in off-peak times, especially when public transport drops way down after 6pm,” he said.
The transfer of management of Yarra Park to the Melbourne Cricket Club resulted in a $2.1 million drop in parking revenue, the council’s draft budget papers state. Overall, the council will get about $82.6 million in parking fees and fines next year.
There was good news for residents in the draft budget plan, with rates increasing by 1.9 per cent, well below the expected CPI rise of 2.5 per cent. This was despite a valuation report from January which found that houses had increased in value by an average of 8.6 per cent and apartments had increased by 10.4 per cent since 2008.
The budget allocates the first part of spending for the Swanston Street revival plan with $7.8 million to create a new ”civic space” and super stop in front of the State Library.
But elderly and disabled people could be affected by rises in fees for services, with some meals on wheels services climbing 11.8 per cent and after-hours personal care and respite fees increasing between 66 per cent and 71 per cent.
