Concord West Parking Precinct – Council Resolution of 21/3/6

The Resolution as moved was somewhat different from the Recommendation:

1.THAT a Working Group be established to develop a detailed policy on Residential Parking Scheme for the City based on the following principles:
a)Fairness
b)Equity
c)Simplicity of administration
d)Consistency across the City
e)Cost neutral as a minimum
f)Non-transferability
g)To achieve an effective sustainable solution for our residents.

2. THAT the members of the Working Group be the Mayor Councillor
Tsirekas, Councillors McCaffrey, Rooney, O’Hara and Kenzler.

3. THAT a detailed design be prepared for the Traffic Committee regarding treatment of the intersection of Hospital Road and Fremont Street.

4. THAT the feasibility of parking meters or park and display be examined in Hospital Road from Nullawarra Avenue to the cul-de-sac and a further report be brought back to Council on this proposal.

5. THAT line marking be carried out by Council at each property’s driveway in the streets of Concord West that were included in the parking survey.
6. THAT the ’silent cop’ at Loch Maree Parade and Killoola Street be removed.

As can be seen, Council is proceeding with a number of the proposed solutions and hopefully this will address soon some of the problems.

The issue that has caused the most vexation and which will be addressed by the Working Group has been parking permits and the number of permits that can be issued. Officers have investigated the matter and reported back, as is shown in the Agenda. It seems clear to me that the maximum any household can get is three Permits, less the number of onsite parking spaces they have. If this is accepted to be the case, then a Resident Parking Scheme, while useful in some respects, is somewhat less attractive than might have been earlier thought.

A point was made by one speaker that some side driveways are too narrow for their cars to traverse. If correct, then there is somewhat less actual onsite parking spaces in the area than indicated in the report, and therefore correspondingly more Permits allowed. In the report the RTA spokesman Mr Chui calculated that 188 Permits could be issued. If 200, or 250 or even 300 Permits were ultimately issued, bearing in mind that the total number of household in the area is 363, this is still an average of less than one permit per household. Many households would have none.

In a previous report it had been mentioned that different solutions for different streets and areas could be achieved, for example if residents of Loch Maree Parade (or another street) do not want a RPS, they should not have one. I would expect that ultimately this outcome is possible.