At a meeting of the Dunedin City Council yesterday, councillors voted to adopt a resolution from Cr Aaron Hawkins which was aimed at providing a greater understanding of parking in the central city.
Staff will be tasked with collecting information on all on and off street parking as well as the number of spaces in both public and private parking buildings.
A report that will also contain capacity and occupancy data will be presented to the council before next year's annual plan.
Private parking providers had no legal obligation to provide the information.
Cr Hawkins said there were few opinions held more fiercely than people's views on parking, so it was important to have accurate and relevant data to guide debates on the matter.
Even those who supported the direction the council was taking on transport in the city wanted an accurate idea of how parking was being used, he said.
''We need to understand the scale of the problem before we go off and promise to build car parking buildings everywhere, because we don't know if we need it or not.''
The council estimates there are about 6240 marked car parks of all types in the central city, including unrestricted, time-restricted and per-hour charged parks.
Surveys run about every four years between 1989 and 2016 showed the city's total parking supply hovered between 10,500 and 11,400.
Staff were already working on a new count and Cr Lee Vandervis raised concerns about the motion complicating any work which had started.
To be relevant, any new data needed to be comparable with previous counts and asking staff to include information not gathered before could compromise that, Cr Vandervis said.
It was already clear more parking was needed and public opinion, sought on social media, backed that up, he said.
Mayor Dave Cull said throughout all recent debates on parking it had been difficult to know exactly what the facts were because it was not clear what the city's parking needs were.
It was important to have the facts to inform any changes, Mr Cull said.
Councillors voted 14-1 to adopt the resolution. Only Cr Vandervis voted against it.
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Comments
Hawkins.... Quiet on a lot of matters, but guess what, election time coming, starts to open his mouth. Pathetic
That's not true. You obviously don't watch the council meetings in action ( either live or online). Cr hawkins is very active and involved and not pathetic at all. Why not follow his Facebook.
What the heck - 'Staff will be tasked with collecting information on all on and off street parking as well as the number of spaces in both public and private parking buildings.' Well I understand some of the private parking part, but Councils should have the finger on the pulse of how many car parks are in any building for safety reasons and search and find it anything happens. but WHAT the Heck Council don't have a clue on number on Public parking yet they have cut parking spots, a bit like M.I.C.K.E.Y M.O.U.S.E don't you think Hawkins. NO Hawkins 'We need to understand the scale of the problem before we go off and promise to build car parking buildings everywhere, because we don't know if we need it or not.'' Council should have known the effect removing car parks would have in the first place. But this is normal for a bunch of clueless people trying to running a town. This is more evidence that some on council are not fit for purpose.