Dunedin City Council contractors and staff will begin work tomorrow to change maximum parking restrictions in George St, Princes St and surrounding streets after councillors bowed to public pressure and backed down this week from recently introduced changes.
Council parking review working party chairman deputy mayor Syd Brown asked for "patience and co-operation" from city motorists as the changes were implemented.
"It's not possible to wave a magic wand and change everything overnight, so I appeal to motorists to give us a chance to get the job done.
"In return, I promise our parking enforcement team will be taking a generous and understanding approach to ticketing during the change period."
Asked what that meant, Cr Brown said workers would be changing the parking machines and street signs tomorrow, while parking fees were required, and some areas would be finished before others.
That meant, for instance, some areas would be marked 30 minutes while others would be marked four hours, and those would change during the day.
He asked people to "look carefully" at the maximum time marked when they parked, but parking officers had a clear direction to ticket only the more blatant cases of offending.
The changes apply to maximum stay periods, which will be reduced, not to the hourly tariff, which is $4 an hour in George St, and less depending on the distance from there.
That cost is one matter the working party will review.
The maximum stay in George and Princes Sts between Rattray and Albany Sts will be cut to 30 minutes, and one hour in surrounding streets, except for a 30-minute maximum around Dunedin Hospital.
"We've acknowledged we got some elements of the strategy wrong and we're moving as quickly as possible to redesignate those areas which have come under attack, while at the same time our working party will, over the next couple of weeks, analyse other data about the strategy's impact on parking patterns."
Cr Brown said the work would be complete by Monday.
