Toowoomba council backflips on controversial parking plan after major community backlash
Toowoomba council has scrapped its controversial parking strategy after fierce community backlash, with councillors voting to defer the plan that would have forced schools to police parking.
The Toowoomba council have backflipped on its controversial new parking strategy to instead pursue a slew of potential reforms, following significant backlash from residents, businesses and community groups.
Councillors voted at Tuesday’s ordinary meeting to defer the implementation of the strategy, in a complete reversal of the narrow 6-5 committee vote to pass it.
The new document, which was designed to stimulate economic activity in the CBD and divide the city into precincts, came after an extensive consultation period with locals, business owners and key stakeholders.
Key potential reforms included the introduction of pay-by-plate technology, demand-based pricing to achieve an occupancy rate of 85-90 per cent, reforms to parking permits and increases to fines for illegal activities.
A highly-contentious element of the strategy was the requirement for schools and sporting clubs to have to handle the overseeing of parking during peak periods, including developing and implementing parking management plans.
Hospitals would also have three-hour parking zones created within a 200m walking distance of them, which was designed to “disperse parking impacts over a wider area”.
The move to have drop-off zones enforced through “periodic active management by staff” was slammed by the Queensland Teachers’ Union as “ill-conceived”.
“Education Queensland staff are not employed by council, they should not be performing the tasks of a council,” regional organiser Zeb Sugden said.
“Policing local parking laws is not the role of a teacher aide, teacher, or principal.
“Of additional concern is the vicarious liability the department assumes when teachers are performing traffic management without it being a feature of a position description or having received the appropriate training.”
Councillor James O’Shea, who had voted against its implementation at committee, on Tuesday proposed a deferral of the strategy so it could be discussed at a new workshop in February.
Mr O’Shea offered a series of reforms that he believed should be either explored or fast-tracked, including pay-by-plate, free parking permits for CBD workers at the Water and Station St parking lots, review of night-time lighting at all its facilities and exploring two-wheeled “verge” parking.
“Our residents have told us loudly and consistently that their biggest barriers to using our existing car parks are safety and lighting,” he said.
“They’ve told us clearly that convenience and clarity matters (and) they’ve told us that before the council considers new restrictions or new expectations on the public, we need to get our own house in order.
“I believe that the document before us today fails to respond with the urgency that the feedback deserves (and) it simply doesn’t deliver the initiatives that would make a real difference on the ground.
“By trialling practical initiatives, the addition of pay-by-plate technology, lighting audits, the prospect of free CBD worker permits, reinvesting compliance revenue (and) exploring verge parking, we can make real improvements now, not just promises for later.”
Mr O’Shea’s motion was supported by Tim McMahon and deputy mayor Rebecca Vonhoff, the latter of which took to social media to explain why she felt the strategy had “issues”.
“I can’t support extra burdens and red tape for hospitals schools and sporting groups,” she wrote.
“The strategy was to put in place three-hour parking around hospitals and that would have been terrible for nurses, orderlies, cleaners, medicos etc who work eight-hour shifts (if not longer).
“The strategy also expected teachers to monitor traffic and parking compliance before school pick-ups but that’s not their job – they’re educators.”
Councillor Carol Taylor, the lone dissenting voice against deferring the strategy, said she had become “frustrated” by the lack of progress around parking reforms.
“We have kicked this down the road so many times,” she said.
“If we keep doing the same thing, we’ll get the same result, and we’ve been doing the same thing for a long, long time.
“Deferral will allow just that, it will go round and round.
“Councillors, if you endorse this strategy, it doesn’t mean that elements of it can’t be changed.
“If you have a look at the number of times we’ve deferred affirmative action on this it absolutely does not do us any credit.”
Community feedback reveals ‘out of step’ expectations
The committee report by infrastructure general manager Mike Brady was particularly stinging of residents’ and stakeholders’ expectations around parking, which he described as being “out of step with what would be expected for a major regional city”.
He said responses to the draft strategy earlier this year indicated a large amount of people hadn’t even read it properly before providing feedback.
“Given the volume of content available, it is reasonable to expect that many participants did not read the draft strategy in depth, but the written responses indicate a misinterpretation of the reasons behind the recommendations in the draft strategy,” he wrote.
“For example, some business owners indicated concern that time restrictions were used to make CBD employees waste time shuffling their cars, not recognising that time restrictions are being proposed so more customers can access CBD businesses, with workers encouraged to park further away and walk.
“Overall sentiment appeared to be more in line with what would be expected when paid parking is introduced for the first time.”
Mr Brady was also blunt in concluding most respondents would prefer to park immediately out the front of their CBD destination, at any time, for free.
“It is human nature to seek convenience, and with parking it can often be said that people want to park as close as possible to their destination, for as long as they want, for free,” he wrote.
“This presents problems for any centre of activity where economic activity is directly linked to the number of customers accessing the area.”
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Originally published as Toowoomba council backflips on controversial parking plan after major community backlash
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