Paid parking areas are set to expand in the city centre come November as part of council’s Parking Management Plan. So what do people on the ground in the CBD think?

Last week, Tauranga City Council’s Commission approved a staggered roll-out plan of additional changes to city centre parking.

The first phase was launched last December, seeing the end of two-hour free parking and the re-introduction of paid on-street parking in the CBD.

The rest of the changes were set to be rolled out this November – but the Commission has now opted to stagger the rollout during a 12-month period. Starting November 1, phase two

will be apply paid on-street parking to Third Ave, Fourth Ave, Arundel St, Westbay Lane, McLean St, Monmouth St, Anson St and extend a section of First Ave, Second Ave and Devonport Rd.

Cash grab?

CBD hospitality worker Ethan Watene spearheaded a petition calling for carparking support for city workers last year after December’s parking changes. He says the Parking Management Plan is “getting a bit ridiculous”.

“It almost feels as though they’re trying to outcast the city from my point of view. It’s saddening because we want to see more people. We want to see more events. We want to draw people to the city rather than push them away is what I want to see, because from where I stand it almost looks more like a cash grab than anything.”

CBD hospitality worker Ethan Watene.

Assessing the situation

TCC’s general manager of infrastructure Nic Johansson says it’s important for council to continue to assess the current parking environment while the CBD goes through a major transformation. “As the city centre is transformed over the next few years, there will inevitably be disruption. We acknowledge the need to make sure parking options are adapted accordingly, and by staggering the rollout, we can be agile with the way these planned changes are implemented,” says Nic.

“This gradual rollout will help address the pressure being put on residential streets, as the city centre fringe becomes a high-demand parking area. It also allows us to keep monitoring parking demand in the city centre and ensure we are reducing disruption for residents and local businesses while the city centre transformation takes shape.”

See-sawing issues

Earlier in June council re-introduced free weekend parking and changed the time of paid evening parking from 6pm to 5pm. “Obviously I’m all for that kind of thing but it just seems like one issue after the other you know,” says Ethan. “They [TCC] do something good but then go ahead, turn it around and make things a little bit worse than they need to be at the same time.”

Elite Fitness sales professional Robson King works in the city fringe area soon to be included in the paid parking zone. He hopes the changes won’t impact the store. “We’ve got a big carpark at least and I think we should be alright for the meantime,” says Robson. “There’s a couple of other smaller businesses that don’t have their own carparks down there, so obviously if you’ve got to keep paying just to go in for a few little things that could get quite annoying to customers.”

Fringe streets ‘choked’

Downtown Tauranga chair Ashleigh Gee says since paid parking has come back in the city centre, there’s a good turnover of the carparks available. But in turn, she says: “We now see the fringe streets getting choked with all day parking”.

Downtown Tauranga chair Ashleigh Gee.

“Some of the types of businesses on these streets rely on customers being able to get a park close by. Visitors and customers will go elsewhere if it becomes too hard to access a business.”

Phase two of the staggered roll out to city parking kicks off November 1, with phase three and four proposed for April and September 2024 respectively.