Free parking in Tauranga city centre

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On-street parking is now free in the Tauranga city centre.

However, time restrictions will be enforced to help keep parking spaces available for shoppers and business customers.

At present there is a three-hour parking time limit in most city centre streets. This will be changed to a two-hour limit in August after the Traffic and Parking Bylaw 2012 has been amended.

Last week the council debated how to ensure the trial produced solid data about how people used the free parking, and whether it was abused by inner city workers willing to go out and move their cars several times during the day.

Several councillors were keen to copy Hamilton, which installed sensors in parking spaces to track usage.

Council staff were investigating this and other technological monitoring options. In the meantime parking wardens will do the monitoring.

Tauranga's trial was expected to come at a cost of about $100,000 a month in lost revenue from parking fees. This would be partly offset by another decision last week to raise parking fees. This would apply outside the free two hours and in off-street parking areas and buildings.

Anyone parking for more than two hours is encouraged to use the parking buildings or the all-day off-street car parks.

People who work all day in the city centre are reminded that Bayhopper buses are free until July 27.

Staff will monitor the effect of the free parking trial and report back to the council on November 30.