Hobart council defends price hike, denies parking officers have quotas
The Hobart City Council has defended an increase in parking prices and denied officers were encouraged to book vehicles, after the increase was slammed by business owners and residents. LATEST >>
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THE Hobart City Council has defended its parking price hike and denied parking officers were encouraged to book vehicles, after the increase was criticised by business owners and residents.
At the start of July, the price of hourly metered parking in Hobart’s CBD went up from $3.60 to $5.
City of Hobart CEO Kelly Griggs said despite the changes, Hobart parking remained one of the most affordable in the country.
“No one really likes paying for parking, but there are good reasons for it,” Ms Griggs said.
“Without controls, drivers would take CBD parking spots every morning and stay all day which is not a good outcome for anyone.”
Ms Griggs said the fees would help pay for Hobart services.
“Fees also help to fund ongoing parking infrastructure maintenance and meet the growing cost of delivering the many services which the people of Hobart rightly expect.
“Those services include things like good roads, accessible bushland, enjoyable parks, emergency management and essential waste and stormwater services.”
Ms Griggs said Covid was in part to blame for the increase.
“Covid-19 has had a big impact on our budget, and therefore the funding available to provide many services to our community,” she said.
“Parking income is one part of a bigger effort to respond to the unprecedented financial impacts of COVID-19 to ensure that we can continue to provide high-quality services.”
Ms Griggs also rejected claims parking officers were encouraged to issue tickets.
“Let me be absolutely clear – there are no quotas, no targets, and no benchmarks for issuing parking fines,” Ms Griggs said.
“Our Parking and Information Officers are primarily encouraged to provide information and guidance to motorists.
“And they always offer a grace time of several minutes for all overstay and non-payment before issuing an infringement notice.”
Makeover for long-standing North Hobart restaurant
A NORTH Hobart restaurant that has served Indonesian and Thai food for about three decades is set to be refurbished and re-branded, with a new addition forming part of the owner’s plans.
Dede restaurant in Elizabeth St will become a Chinese eatery and will be renamed Peony Pavilion, which is a play regarded as the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet.
And a new cocktail bar within the restaurant as part of the refurbishment, with those plans currently being advertised through the Hobart City Council.
Business owner Bin Wang took over the restaurant two years ago, and said he was looking forward to putting a new spin on the eatery.
“There will be a cocktail bar within the restaurant,’’ he said.
“It’s for those that don’t want any big food, just snacks and a drink, it will be a cosy and comfortable area for you.
“It’s hard for me to close the Dede — I know a lot of regular customers. But I want to go forward and bring something new for North Hobart.”
The building is owned by former State Cinema proprietor John Kelly, who said there was “cautious optimism” among traders in the North Hobart strip.
Mr Kelly has eight tenants in North Hobart, including the Crescent Hotel on Burnett St which reopened last year after a refurbishment.
“Things are steady at the moment, and some businesses are taking the opportunity now to hit the refresh button,’’ he said.
“There’s still some trepidation, however, business people in North Hobart are by nature optimistic and they couldn’t be in business nor doing refurbishments unless they were confident post-Covid.
“The [State] Cinema is picking up. A lot of it is driven from how the cinema goes and now films are starting to trickle through from distributors, the patrons are returning and that is just good for the whole strip.”
Mr Kelly handed over the reins to new owners Reading Cinema in December 2019 after 18 years as operator and director of the successful cinema complex.
Businesses can’t wait for slice of cruise ship pie again
Despite Tasmania’s economy being the best in the nation throughout the pandemic, a popular Tassie tourist town is being labelled a ghost town as some of its most popular businesses struggle to survive.
David Kearney has run the historic Richmond Gaol since 2011 and said the lack of tourists in the town had forced him to close the business for large periods of time over the last 16 months.
“Eighty-five to ninety per cent of visitors are mainlanders and the rest are pretty much off the cruise ships so it wasn’t worth opening as there were no mainlanders here,” Mr Kearney said.
“We normally get around 45,000 visitors a year and December to March makes up about two thirds of that and those number were down around 50 per cent compared to 2019,” he said.
Mr Kearney said the business would have most likely gone under if it hadn’t been for government assistance.
“The wife and I got JobKeeper and I don’t think we would have managed to stay afloat without that as we would’ve had all these bills and no income.”
“We just hope things can get back to normal soon and tourists can start coming back,” he said.
Kim Kay has owned and operated the popular Richmond Bakery since 2007 and said the huge reduction in customers due to Covid had resulted in laying off 15 employees to keep the business going.
“The impact of Covid has been huge. We are down around fifty per cent for the recent December to March period compared to 2019 and we’ve now gone from a staff of 50 down to 35,” Ms Kay said.
The longtime bakery owner said her business relied heavily on interstate and international visitors and their absence was detrimental to the business.
“The cruise ship industry in particular has left a huge hole in our business,” she said.
“The larger cruise ships that come to Hobart offer many tours and Richmond is often the beneficiary of that as many of the tours come (here) on the way to places like Port Arthur and not having them come has had a massive impact on the area.
“We’ve had as many as 14 tour buses in a day coming to Richmond and that’s 700 passengers and that’s a big difference.
“Even if they don’t buy a lot they often by something little and at the end of the day it all adds up and it’s big dollars for us.”
“If no one is coming then we have next to no customers and all the businesses around Richmond are feeling it … some days it’s like a ghost town now which is very unusual.”
Since the cruise ships stopped coming and international borders closed, Richmond bakery’s business has slumped by 50 per cent.
“It has left a big hole for us because each year the number of cruise visitors was increasing so on cruise days we could average 12 buses because Richmond, being a historic town, was added on to a number of local tours,” Ms Kay said.
“It has hit us pretty hard especially from that December through to the end of March period when we received the bulk of cruise visitors.
“The tour co-ordinators and bus companies would send me the details of how many passengers to expect and I would distribute that information to the other places in Richmond so that they could put on extra staff if they wished.”
Carnival Australia and P&O Cruises Australia president Sture Myrmell said Richmond’s experience was strong evidence the cruise economy was both deep and wide in terms of its reach and value.
“It might come as a surprise to many that a family owned and operated bakery in historic Richmond could be part of the value chain of the $5 billion a year cruise industry,” Mr Myrmell said
“Businesses both small and large benefit from economic activity generated by cruising but the flow has now been cut off for more than a year with no indication of when the tap might be turned on again.
“This loss of business opportunity for so many underlines why it is so important for federal and state governments to engage and agree on a pathway for the resumption of domestic cruising, knowing that it will be months before any cruise ship can return to Australia.”
In Richmond, Ms Kay is looking forward to when international borders opened, interstate lockdowns were a thing of the past and cruise visitors returned to her bakery.
“We are really looking forward to that day,” she said.
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