More buildings, land for parking

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33052, 20 October 1972, Page 1

More buildings, land for parking

(By our City Council reporter)

Off-street car parking will be increased substantially as a result of two agreements reached by the Christchurch City Council.

There will be room for 338 cars in a parking building which is being built as part of the A.M.P. society’s office-shop-hotel complex between Cathedral Square and Oxford Terrace. The council will lease the building for 40 years.

Near the Town Hall, the opening of which showed a desperate need for parking, the council has leased one acre 11.65 perches formerly occupied by Five Star Motors, Ltd, in Kilmore Street for five years. If the buildings are cleared from it, up to 160 cars can be accommodated. A car-park building, probably underground, will be part of the second stage of the civic centre-Town Hall project. It is likely to be of two floors with space for 400 cars. Another parking building is proposed for a building project on the site of Tattersails Hotel. Plans have been amended and complete finality on the size has not yet been reached, but the building is seen as a need to serve retail shops and offices south of Cathedral Square, particularly when parts of Cashel Street become a pedestrian shopping mall. The building may have seven floors for parking. Need seen The City Council already has its own parking buildings in Manchester Street (360 cars) and Lichfield Street (425), as well as an open space in Tuam Street; but the need for more buildings has been recognised for some years. The cost of the A.M.P. Society’s parking building has been estimated at sl.lm, and it has been agreed that there should be a base rental of 8 per cent a year for the first, eight years, thereafter 8| per cent. Profits will be shared equally, but the first eight years is allowed , for the council to recover accumulated initial losses. This is seen by the Mayor (Mr N. G. Pickering), who confirmed the agreement yesterday, and Cr D. R. Dowell, chairman of the council’s finance committee, as good business, with the city not having to face up to the capital cost. About 50 spaces will be needed for the hotel staff and guests. At the Five Star Motors’ site in Kilmore Street, the new owners, the Vanderley Family Trust, have agreed to give the council the land on a five-year lease for $20,000 a year, plus rates. The council has the right to sub-let part of the property to the Post Office, which had earlier sought to lease one-sixth of the area, land the owners will contribute $5OOO towards the cost l of making the site ready for i parking. i Parking meters will be installed on the site because 'this is thought to be a {cheaper method of providing

parking and getting revenue than having a staff collecting money and issuing tickets. The Town Hall was built as a metropolitan local bodies’ project, and it is probable that the local bodies outside the city which have representation on the Town Hall Committee will be asked to contribute to the cost. When the new parking facilities are provided, Christchurch city will be an easier Clace in which to park a car; ut it will probably be a more costly place then. Studies have been made of parking meter use and the time occupied in parking buildings off the street. They show that generally a motorist does not use his full hour or half-hour on meters. With rising costs, the council can be expected to use the unused minutes.

Cut in time Without showing an “increase” in charges, the council could cut down the times allowed on meters—2o minutes instead of half an hour for 5 cents. At the same time, it is likely that charges in offstreet parking buildings will be reviewed so that they will attract the short-time user instead of the all-day parker. When parking meters were introduced to Christchurch they were regarded by some as an infringement of the

citizen’s right to the Queen’s highway, by others as a new avenue of local body revenue and by those who instituted them as a means of helping the flow of traffic and providing a chance for motorists to get near the places in which they wanted to shop or do business.

They are now accepted as a part of every-day city life, particularly since a standard over-parking fee of $1 replaced court appearances and fines and since there has been public cognisance of the fact that meter revenue goes towards what the administrators call benefits for motorists—traffic control signals and more parking buildings. Once the council has the new buildings and open spaces available, it will judge the time ripe for an increase in charges,.