Whangārei's Rathbone St is among the city centre’s highest demand car parking areas. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Whangārei's Rathbone St is among the city centre’s highest demand car parking areas. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Whangārei’s low cost car parking is no longer sustainable as demand goes up and car park numbers go down, the local council is warning.
That’s the message in Whangārei District Council (WDC)’s September 2022 draft parking strategy, prepared by an Auckland-based transport planning business. The draft strategy will govern what WDC does about the city’s squeezed car parking into the future.
The draft strategy said there was a reluctance to increase the cost of car parking, which had traditionally been free or very low cost.
“This is challenging in a growing city like Whangārei, and where low-cost car parking is no longer sustainable,” the 29-page draft strategy said.
It said parking demand was expected to intensify over time through population increase, major city centre developments including the Hundertwasser and new WDC civic centre, an ageing population bringing more over-70s to use free parking and transport mode shift.
But this is happening as the supply of car parks likely decreases.
Whangārei potentially faced losing up to 299 car parks if current WDC-owned property was developed in Vinery Lane and Vine St. This would come on top of the loss of 150 parking spaces in the Dent Street car park that closed in 2021.
Northland Transportation Alliance asset strategy and management lead Dawn Spence said city centre car parking supply had reduced in recent years and would continue without intervention.
Spence and WDC manager infrastructure planning Sarah Irwin’s Whangārei city parking agenda item was being presented at a councillor briefing on Wednesday, with the council’s draft strategy and draft Whangārei city centre parking management plan.
They said car parking would be lost through road safety improvements, the introduction of priority bus lanes, cycleways and streetscape improvements. It was unlikely public car parking would continue to be provided in undeveloped locations such as the James St car park once they were developed.
“It is essential that council provides long term surety of parking provision within the city centre to offset public parking lost to development and corridor improvements,” their agenda item said.
Whangārei city has 3550 car parks in its centre and city fringes. These are made up of just 350 city centre on-street paid parking spaces in the area bounded by Bank, Walton and Dent streets. There were a further 1750 paid off-street city centre parking spaces – which are often underused. On the city fringe there were 900 free off-street parking spaces. There were also 550 on-street parking spaces within 200m walk of the city centre.
But demand for those car parks did not match supply in all locations.
The draft strategy said car parking took lots of land that increasingly had higher priority uses. Large areas of car parking reduced the quality of Whangārei’s public places. Each off-street car park took up 30sq m of land. Each on-street parking space took up at least 15sq m plus turning space in traffic lanes.
Whangārei district’s population is predicted to grow to 144,000 people by 2051 – 44,000 more people.
“There is limited road space for more parking, particularly in the city centre,” the strategy said
There are plans to move away from cars to other options including public transport, cycling and walking. But this could take some time.
Spence and Irwin said 83 per cent of trips into Whangārei city for work and school were in cars.
More than 12,000 people come into Whangārei for work or education daily.
They said the city’s overall car parking demand was well below available parking spaces. However, there were localised situations where there were too many cars for the available spaces.
The women said the city centre had an average 62 per cent occupancy on weekdays, 49 per cent on Saturdays. The city fringe had 68 per cent on weekdays and 35 per cent on Saturdays.
Car parks in Whangārei city centre's Laurie Hall car parking area are in demand. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Their agenda item revealed about half of Whangārei’s car parking is overloaded during the week, with occupancy rates of between 85 per cent and 100 per cent.
The draft strategy said Whangarei city’s car parking was ideally occupied between 75 per cent and 85 per cent of the time.
Spence and Irwin said some parking charges were too low. An example of this was off-street car parking in zone two – which includes Walton, Hannah, Clyde and Carruth Sts as well as Water, Bank and Hunt Sts. Parking here costs $1 per hour for up to 180 minutes.
A new car parking charging system would address uneven occupancies, they said. The women recommended changing from a flat hourly or day-long fee to a sliding scale encouraging short-stay visitor parking and discouraging all-day commuter parking. This needed a new paperless pay-by-plate parking system to stop people shifting their car intermittently to avoid paying higher rates for longer stays.
Possible car park charges
Whangārei city’s car parking is split into four zones, with charges since September 2022 ranging from $2 per hour and a three-hour time limit in highest demand areas such as Rathbone St, through to $2 per day in some off-street parking areas such as Water St and Vinery Lane.
Possible new sliding scale council car parking charges have been mooted.
Zone one city centre: Short stay parking for customers and visitors in highest demand areas - which include Rathbone, John and James Sts plus Vinery Lane – would see the first hour being free, $2 per hour for one to two hours and $4 per hour for more than two hours. This is currently $2 per hour for up to two hours.
Zone two: Short stay parking for customers and visitors in areas of modest demand – which include Walton, Hannah, Clyde and Carruth Stsas well as Water, Bank and Hunt Sts - would see the first hour free, $1 per hour for one to two hours and $2 per hour for over two hours. This is currently $1 per hour for up to two hours.
Zone three: Aimed at long-stay parking for all-day commuters – which include Water St, Vinery Lane, Hātea west and east plus the canopy bridge - would change to 50 cents an hour with lower costs for stays of less than four hours, increasing after that. This is currently $2 per day.
