Another option was for commuters to use the council-owned Tauranga Marina carpark at Sulphur Point during the times when it was largely empty from Monday to Friday.
The idea would be to run a shuttle bus service to the CBD from Memorial Park and Sulphur Point, opening up more carparks downtown for shoppers.
"We want to address the current shortage of carparks," said committee chairman Rick Curach.
Council growth and infrastructure manager Christine Jones said the supply of short-term parking went wider than the CBD and a report would be brought to the council shortly.
Converting Wharepai Domain and Memorial Park would also need a budget so the council could look at it for the financial year starting July 1, she said.
Councillor Terry Molloy said the council needed to start encouraging people to use buses, and not necessarily by being punitive.
"We will be doing all we can to get people into buses."
However, Mr Curach said it was the immediacy of the parking problem that needed to be addressed.
A report on historic levels of carparking, current carparking and future carparking in the CBD would be distributed to councillors for feedback.
The example of how the cities of Vancouver and Seattle had managed to do away with parking in their CBDs and get everyone on to buses was highlighted to the committee.
Councillor Bill Grainger responded dryly: "You will find they are much bigger cities."
Mr Curach said it would be a brave politician who did that.
Many Tauranga residents approached by the Bay of Plenty Times reacted strongly when they heard of the idea.
Marc Williams said council needed to stay away from "Band-Aid proposals".
"All too often temporary becomes permanent and the problem is shifted from one topic to another.
"Instead of Band-Aid proposals for an ever-increasing parking problem in Tauranga CBD, locals and TCC together need to keep the focus on the alternative initiatives to reduce the volumes of CBD traffic to a sustainable level."
Mr Williams said ideas such as cycleways, park and ride buses, better bus services and car pool lanes were all better ideas.
Welcome Bay resident Barbara Reid said she was not keen on the idea, because she thought there must be better options to pursue before using green spaces.
"I work and park in town so I appreciate the need for carpark spaces. But if the idea is temporary then I'd have to know for sure that the impact on the reserve is minimal and that it definitely was temporary."
Ms Reid said she would happily drive to a carpark in Welcome Bay and take a bus or shuttle into town.
"I currently lease a spot on Elizabeth St so I guess it would have to cost the same or less - although not having to drive in traffic would push me towards a park and ride option."
Another resident said she thought Memorial Park was big enough to accommodate a parking lot.
"As long as it was temporary and not the whole thing."