Wollongong shoppers will not get free parking over Christmas and January, after a majority of councillors voted against a plan to turn off all the city's parking meters for four weeks over the festive season.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In an ambitious motion raised at councillors' last meeting for the year, Cameron Walters had hoped to convince his colleagues to deliver "a Christmas present" for shoppers and retailers.
He also asked that the council urge GPT to introduce a three-hour free parking period.
But most other councillors argued there was no problem with paid parking.
Janice Kershaw said she believed there was "no problem" with parking costs, as most of the on and off street parking spaces in the city centre were full.
"If the residents weren't coming, GPT wouldn't have 'car park full' signs out on the footpath," she said.
Get real, we're a city, we're not a hick town anymore. And that requires you to have a couple of $2 coins in your car to pop in the meter.
- Councillor Ann Martin
"You wouldn't be driving round and round and nearly to the roof before you find a car parking space. There's no vacant spaces, the car parks are full."
David Brown said "opposition to paid parking is emotional and irrational", because it helped to boost turnover in the CBD streets. He said office workers would "stay all day" without the meters, and noted that a drop in parking meter revenue would affect the council's marketing budget to help businesses in the mall.
Deputy Lord Mayor Tania Brown admitted even her own children though she was being a grinch for voting against the parking meter switch-off, but said she had spoken to some retailers who though they would fare worse without them because of a lack of shopper "churn".
And Ann Martin said more parking, not free parking, was needed in the city, and thought turning off the meters for a short period would "feed the myth that Wollongong is somehow going down the gurgler".
"Get real, we're a city, we're not a hick town anymore," she said.
"And that requires you to have a couple of $2 coins in your car to pop in the meter."
Cr Walters' Liberal colleagues supported his proposal, with John Dorahy saying the council needed to show it was listening to businesses and residents.
Leigh Colacino took a different tack, saying he was a fan of paid parking but not opposed to a Christmas switch-off as it would give the council ammo when debating the need for parking meters - and their role in encouraging shopper turnover - in the future.
"If we're going to have conversation with our retailers going forward - let's eliminate one of the problems," he said.
"Let's sort this out, for the sake of this couple of weeks. This is the ultimate community consultation."
Labor's Jenelle Rimmer voted with her rivals, saying it was vital to listen to business owners even though she didn't think free parking would help to ease the woes they had faced throughout 2020.
"If we can do one small things to indicate to them that we know they've struggled and turn off the parking maters for a few weeks then I'm actually going to support it, I'm going to cross the floor I guess," she said.
"I note there is concern about the turnover, but I would have assumed our rangers still went around to our parking areas to check anyway."
"We should be calling on GPT to do their bit - if they can offer a few hours free parking, why shouldn't we do that."
Facing a loss for his motion, Cr Walters said he had witnessed a large number of parking spaces not being used and believed the only reason GPT's car spaces were full were because of Coles (which allows shoppers to get 90 minutes parking for free with a spend of $20).
He said workers would have deserted the city by December 21 - when his turn-off was proposed - leaving spaces in the council-run car parks around the city fringes vacant.
"This [was] a very small period, a very small price to give businesses in retail and hospitality a chance to recover," he said.
"But tonight, we've got a fair few grinches in the house and people are going to see how little they listen to business, how little they listen to residents and how they look at their community."