Alderman
GARY HASLETT
serving DARWIN 2012-17
Making Darwin Great Again- Go With Gary
City of Darwin Council has millions of dollars in parking reserves.
A
lot of this money has been collected from developers as a penalty with the
express promise that it be spent on providing near-by car parking. Council
has no intention of ever spending this money. Collecting this money
with no intention of spending it is dishonest.
Every
Council that is elected adopts a plan to spend some of the money right at
the end of that Councils term. Somehow something comes up that means it is
deferred to the next Council.
The
21st Council has no excuse, it has had an extra 18 months to do
something, still nothing has been done to increase parking in the CBZ. The
exact opposite has happened, on-street parking has been reduced for
garden beds and on street drinking areas.
Furthermore,
consultants have advised the Lord Mayor and Aldermen not to increase
car parking numbers in the CBZ. Instead they advised that as demand
increases Council can charge more. The consultants advised Council that
the harvest of cash will steadily grow. Once it reaches around $25
a day per parking bay, parking will become profitable for private developers to start harvesting
the public. Then private developers would build parking structures meaning the Council
would
not have to. I oppose this plan and have been the only one to vote
against its implementation.
The
harvesting of money from developers is counterproductive (it is in
effect a tax on
development that goes nowhere not generating a benefit to the community at
all). It is also a disincentive to those who would invest their own capital
into developing Darwin’s CBZ.
I
have even heard some Alderman asking the question if we could have the
rules changed so they can spend the money on other things like bicycles
and green transportation methods to reduce private car usage. They have
often complained that some parking is cheaper than taking the bus. I think
it is arrogant to presume to dictate how others would live their lives
when you are in a position of more privilege.
Home
gary@haslett.com.au
0410 612 142
Authorised by G Haslett Darwin