Parking charges have been set for three car parks in Queenstown's CBD, introducing paid parking to the library car park at Boundary St and to the Recreation Ground car park, while increasing the cost to park at the Ballarat St car park.
Increased revenue from parking was included in the Queenstown Lakes District Council annual plan for 2010-11 and the actual charges, as well as the period of free parking, were set by the council's utilities committee at a meeting yesterday.
Parking at the Ballarat St car park will be lifted from 50c an hour to $1 an hour and the cap of $2.50 per day will be removed, increasing the cost significantly for those using the car park casually for full-day parking.
QLDC transport manager Denis Mander had proposed the charges to apply from 8am to 11pm, but the committee overruled this, and instead chose to set the timeframe to 8am to 6pm.
The free car parks at Boundary St will be changed to a pay-to-use car park between 8am and 6pm, costing 50c an hour, with a maximum of $2.50 per day.
The area between the Recreation Ground and Camp St has until now been one row of leased parking and one row of free parking.
The free parking will now have the same charges and timeframes as the Boundary St car park.
There will not be any changes to the leased parking here at this stage, but Mr Mander said the council intended to wind up its leased parking and encourage leases to be relocated to established parking facilities such as the Man St car park.
"There is today quite a difference between the $70 per month we charge and the monthly charge of $150 at the Man St car park.
We would be aiming to eliminate leased parking at the Recreation Ground, phasing it out gradually," he said.
Cr Gillian Macleod asked why the council did not simply increase the charge for the lease to around $100 per month, giving the Man St car park a chance to lower its rates to meet the customers and encourage them to move there.
Cr Vanessa van Uden did not agree.
"Rather than taking such a heavy-handed approach, I would prefer us to take a proactive initiative to talk to the users about their lease, and phase it out gradually," Cr van Uden said.
The committee discussed whether to remove the cap for the daily parking charges from all the car parks, lead by Cr Lyal Cocks and Cr Gillian Macleod, who suggested a low cap of $2.50 would not encourage commuters to take the bus instead.
Mr Mander's recommendation to keep the cap until the new extended bus services were fully realised and used by the public was accepted by the committee.
The changes still have to be approved by the full council before they can be implemented.
The next meeting is scheduled for August 17.
