Skyline Enterprises was required to build the carpark beside its new gondola terminal as part of its resource consent conditions for its Bob’s Peak redevelopment project, which includes newly introduced 10-seater gondola cabins.
The five-level carpark, which cost "tens of millions" to build, is restricted to users of the Ben Lomond recreation reserve, including the gondola, Ziptrek Ecotours and paragliding staff and clients, as well as mountainbike riders and hikers.
One hundred spaces, on the top two floors, are reserved for Skyline staff.
However, a condition of the carpark’s resource consent — signed off by the Environment Court in 2018 — is parent company Skyline Enterprises "encourage staff and visitors to not use their cars".
Skyline must also "maintain, or preferably increase, the current proportions of Skyline gondola patrons and visitors and other users of the Ben Lomond reserve who prefer to walk or use public transport as their mode of travel to and from the Skyline gondola".
Skyline, moreover, has to conduct, for the local council, five annual surveys of gondola patrons, and other reserve users, to prove it is complying with these and other conditions.
Skyline Enterprises chief executive Geoff McDonald said the need to discourage car use by staff and visitors was "crazy".
"So this is all about the time when they thought all of us were not going to drive anywhere and we’re going to bike everywhere.
"They strip all the parks out of town, and this would be, I guess, the early days of that kind of thinking."
Asked how Skyline could discourage staff from using the carpark, he said "there’s not many levers available to us, are there?"
"Price is obviously one mechanism, which we’ll have to use, but other than that it’s a real challenge. The team are working through it at the moment.
"Obviously, you’ve got to give priority to people who are working at night, and people who really need somewhere safe and secure.
"A lot of the staff will walk or use other forms of transport.
"Whether they end up having to come up with roster systems on super-busy days, or whatever, I don’t really know, but they’ll just have to find a mechanism to make it work."
Mr McDonald said the reason only reserve users could use the carpark related to the site’s reserve zoning.
"But it’s very frustrating because obviously you’ve got a facility like that, adjacent to town — it would be good to make it available to everyone, but we’re bound by it, and we’ve got to find a mechanism to discourage users that are not supposed to be using it.
"It just a real shame there’s not access for the rest of the community who are struggling to find carparks."
Meanwhile, Amanda Robinson, co-founder/trustee of active travel group The Lightfoot Initiative said it was "really disappointing Skyline has had mixed messages about the new carpark — ‘build it, but don’t use it’ just doesn’t cut it".
"Seven years and millions of dollars later, and we’ve achieved so little in our town centre upgrades."
