Rockdale Council’s York Street car park project has been put on the backburner after a survey found that there was an oversupply of short term parking.
The 360 space multi-storey car park was one of council’s major projects nominated in the city plan as well as the Rockdale Town Centre Masterplan 2012.
Planning on the project has been underway for years with council resolving to sell the existing Chapel Street car park in 2014 to redevelop the existing council owned car park on York Street.
Concept plans for the project were completed in November 2015 ahead of a councillor information session in March.
Two concept plans were put forward by DEM Architects for a car park of 360 car spaces with an estimated cost between $17 million and $18 million.
However during the May 18 council meeting an updated council report on the project found that there was insufficient demand for additional short term parking within the town centre and extra parking was not needed while the former Target site remained undeveloped.
Those results came from a parking survey completed in June and October 2015 that found there were currently 600 on street car spaces and 849 off street car spaces.
The survey found that supply exceeds the current demand of 1233 car spaces as well as predicted demand in 2025 of 1346 car spaces.
The report concludes that council should only consider the project to cater for commuter and long term parking.
Councillors later resolved to not to proceed with the next phase of the project and that the matter be referred back to council within nine months.
An updated project report presented at the August 17 council meeting showed no changes.
Rockdale Chamber of Commerce President Allan Wight said with the opening of the new library and other residential developments parking would be critical.
‘’There might be spaces for five or 10 minutes but people who want to shop at three or four places would find it really difficult,’’ he said.
‘’The new developments will put more pressure on businesses in the area so parking is going to be crucial in the future.
‘’When they sold the Chapel Street site there was the understanding that the lost parking spaces would be made up in the York Street car park.
‘’If that doesn’t happen that would be a major renege on their promises.’’
