Tonight, the City of Darebin will consider an updated Parking Permit Policy to go out to community consultation.
Notably, the policy includes a new ‘User Pays’ Permit, which isn’t subsidised:
This contrasts with the City of Yarra, which doesn’t use the work ‘subsidy’ or ‘subsidised’ anywhere in its Parking Management Strategy or Parking Permit Policy.
The draft also notes that pricing is able to help manage the demand for on-street parking:
If the City of Yarra chose to follow the lead of the City of Darebin (and the City of Merri-bek) and offered User Pays permits, combined with converting all non-permit zones to 1 or 2 hour time limits, then non-resident commuters would contribute to the council budget. If council collected $10 per day from 20,000 out of its 47,000 on-street car parking bays for 250 days each year, that would be an income of $50 million per year. This is not an opportunity that council can afford to ignore.
Published 27th March 2023