Lessons learned by board, Scurr says

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By Chris Morris on Fri, 11 Jun 2010
News: Dunedin | Your Town: Port Chalmers | Dunedin parking

Otago Peninsula Community Board chairwoman Irene Scurr says lessons have been learned following changes to parking introduced at Portobello last month.

Speaking at yesterday's board meeting in Dunedin, Ms Scurr defended the public consultation carried out by the board before the changes were introduced, saying "a lot" of meetings had been held.

However, she acknowledged in one case a meeting had been held with the partner of a business owner, and more could be done to keep everyone in the loop.

"One thing we might have done differently was to send a letter to each of the businesses, so they actually had something in front of them," she said.

Her comments came after 1908 Cafe owner Barry Monahan complained about the changes last month, saying space for informal parking outside his business had been replaced by two new P120 signs.

He claimed he had not been properly consulted, and dug up the signs in protest after discovering they were on his property.

The changes led to P120 and P5 restrictions being introduced on one side of the town's main street, while all-day parking remained on the other side of the street.

A public meeting organised by a resident was also planned for June 17, to discuss parking in the township.

Ms Scurr said there remained concerns and misinformation in the community about the changes, but community board members had been invited to attend the meeting.

- chris.morris@odt.co.nz

 

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Community board response

Submitted by Sparrowhawk on Fri, 11/06/2010 - 11:15am.

Again, the Board seems to miss the point. There are more people on this Peninsula than businesses. Yes, they do need to be consulted when it affects them, but so do the non-business residents. In this case, many of the issues need solving, but not by parking plans. These were cited in the plan as reasons to change it.

1) City bus stop was too small.-The buses need to be smaller to get around our curvy road without driving motorists into the bay or cliff. Increasing the size of the bus stop to suit the big bus does not address this issue at all but smaller buses would, even if they put on more. Talking to motorists who use the road on a daily basis might have shown this.

2) No Footpaths around the toilet area.-Footpaths would be a bonus if constructed but are not a reason to reconstruct the parking availability unless it is being used as an excuse to do so.

3) Tourists all-day parking and blocking business access. This is ridiculious, as there is little to do in Portobello all day, after you have bought food and supplies. They then travel on to the tourist venues like Penguin Place beccause they can't get there on foot. If anyone stays all day it's the pub patrons, but their all-day parks are intact, even though the pub has a carpark of its own.

See what I mean?
Consultation of the wider community assesses wider issues. I hope they have learned that one but it doesn't sound like it, as Irene is still going on about the issue with the 1908's owner, who has now had his parking signs removed (and very quickly I might add) and business consultation.

That leaves the rest of us. Hopefully the public meeting will get some of this into their heads.

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