Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

Thanks for your feedback on my previous column. Part Two on ensuring council is as efficient as a business will be written in future weeks. In the meantime, I've asked councillor Steve Morris to share his views with you.

Paid parking – the cause and solution to all of Tauranga CBD's issues, or so many would have us believe.

I don't like paying for parking; never will. When asked whether parking should be free or not, most of us would answer a resounding ‘Yes'.

But is there such a thing as ‘free' parking? No. Someone always pays; it's a matter of whether it's the individual user, businesses or us, corporately, as ratepayers.

Contrary to urban legend, the four-storey parking building at Bayfair or parking at any other suburban mall is not ‘free'.

There is no ‘parking fairy' who magically purchases prime commercial land, builds carparking and then gifts it free in perpetuity as a gesture of goodwill to all mankind.

No, retail developers foot the bill, are required to provide a return on it, pass that cost on through their leases to businesses who in turn pass the cost on to we the consumers. There is nothing immoral in this act; we accept it – the end user pays.

However, in the CBD, it is ratepayers (through their council) who provide both on-street and off-street parking as well as two parking buildings. With between 77-99 per cent peak parking occupancy at times there is the need for more parking supply over the next few years because the CBD is booming.

Tauranga's CBD has had the highest value in commercial building consents of any regional city in New Zealand over the last five years and there are no signs of this slowing with construction of the new Trustpower HQ and a university campus on the horizon.

Do retailers pay for the parking in the CBD? No. It is consumers. Not through our purchases, but directly at the curb. Missing from this so far one dimensional debate is the acknowledgement that council doesn't have a 'parking fairy' either.

To provide additional carparks for the CBD we can either continue to charge users or add the cost to the rates bill for commercial ratepayers (who will raise prices) or residential ratepayers. I'd like to hear your views on this.

You can contact me at steve.morris@tauranga.govt.nz or 5421602