Adelaide City Council to let businesses validate UPark tickets and scrap outdoor dining fees

CBD and North Adelaide businesses will soon be able to validate UPark tickets, while all outdoor dining fees will be scrapped.

Outdoor dining fees will be scrapped in places like Peel St. Picture: MATT LOXTON

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CBD and North Adelaide businesses will soon be able to validate UPark tickets after the Adelaide City Council agreed to investigate creating a system allowing them to do so.

And all outdoor dining fees in the city and North Adelaide will be scrapped as the council passed a raft of proposals.

At a City Council meeting on Tuesday night, councillors voted to investigate an automated system to allow businesses that wanted the ability to validate their customers’ parking tickets when they spent over a certain amount of money.

Deputy Lord Mayor Houssam Abiad said the council would offer a wholesale rate of parking to businesses that they could package up.

“Every business in the city will have the opportunity to advertise that the specific business has the ability to validate their UPark ticket,” he said.

“This will connect the customer with the product.

“The city has to compete with the Westfields of the world and we are trying to bring them back.”

Cr Robert Simms proposed that the council also investigate a system that would allow city businesses to reimburse customers’ public transport tickets but it wasn’t agreed upon by the majority of councillors.

The council also decided to abolish all outdoor dining fees in the city and North Adelaide, after deciding to expand it further than just “complying businesses” — the path they were originally going to go down.

Cr Abiad said it would cut the cost of business.

“A hospitality business with outdoor dining facility pays more rates for that specific site than any other business in the city when it comes the space they are using outside,” he said.

“And the rents are higher because of the opportunity of outdoor dining.

“I don’t want any business that operates a hospitality-type business in the city to ever pay outdoor dining fees in the City of Adelaide,” he said.

Cr Anne Moran said they needed to support smaller businesses, who would be disadvantaged if it was just limited to complying businesses.

“If it is not acting as a lever and its making it harder for the smaller businesses than why would we do it,” she said.

But she said the council needed to do this with a full report on its impacts by staff.

Cr Arman Abrahimzadeh said it would boost business confidence in the city.

“This sends a strong message that we are open for business,” he said.

The council also voted to relaunch the Splash Adelaide program, to help stimulate activity in some of its struggling main streets.

Cr Mary Couros said it would be an effective way to hold exciting events in areas that really needed them.

“It will bring people to our mainstreets now,” she said.

“Our administration can transform those streets … it’s a proven program,” she said.
“I believe it will reignite our laneway culture.”