16 June, 2014

How does Council invest parking revenue?

On Monday June 16th, The Advertiser ran a front page story titled Carpark fee ‘hypocrisy’. In response to this, we want to highlight that UPark prices for the coming year are proposed to increasing on average by around CPI – not 20%.

The 20% referred to in The Advertiser story focusses on one price increase in one time segment (0-30 minutes) and is not representative of the overall pricing strategy proposed across UPark.

We introduced a 30 minute parking fee to UParks last year as part of our Budget review process and it was reviewed again this year, with 50 cents added to the price at five of our eight locations. In some instances this is $2.50 to $3.00 or $3.00 to $3.50 depending on where the UPark is. The prices are comparable to on street pricing in these same areas and UPark continues to offer the cheapest off street prices in the 0-3 hour time period.

With the funds raised annually from on street parking, and also UPark, every cent goes back into infrastructure and services for residents, business operators and city workers and visitors.

This is in sharp contrast to the State’s proposed Parking Tax which will rip more than $26 million from the city economy with no guarantee any funds will be spent back in the city, where it’s raised.