The general manager of a Queenstown lobby group has called a decision by the Queenstown Lakes District Council to remove 15 short-term car parks "odd''.
DowntownQT general manager Steve Wilde was one of five people who addressed the council during the public forum of Thursday's meeting, urging the council to defer its decision on a raft of changes to parking in the resort's CBD.
Despite feedback from the community, the council chose to adopt the recommendation which included, in part, the removal of the Marine Pde car parks. They would be replaced by freeing up parks in the Church St car park.
Mr Wilde told the Otago Daily Times the incorporated society and the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce believed they "had a promise from the chief executive'' the parks would be in place this winter.
While the council agreed at a meeting on April 5 to proceed with the project, the council said in a media release on April 13 the change would "not occur immediately''.
In that statement, chief executive Mike Theelan said the council's resolution would ultimately result in the loss of the 15 parks, but "as an interim step'' the parks would be "reinstated as soon as the worksite hoardings can be safely removed''.
"The car parks will stay in use over the busy winter season,'' the statement said.
Despite that, an agreement was signed with Skyline on May 19.
Councillors were told on Thursday work began at Marine Pde the day before.
Businessman Kim Wilkinson, who also addressed councillors on Thursday, said his first knowledge of that was at the meeting. He believed the council "deliberately misled the public''.
"The mayor and councillors are representatives of the community.
"In a democracy, this means they advocate the wishes of the community, not enter into deals with private companies.''
However, Mr Theelan told the ODT on Friday he did not believe there had been "anything that's endeavoured to be clever''.
The council had initially believed the car parks could be available for this winter; inquiries subsequently found that not to be the case.
"When we inquired it clearly wasn't the case that those hoardings could be reduced any time soon ... we were advised that the building redevelopment was going to require that space for actually most of the winter time.''
At that point, the council looked to find an alternative, Mr Theelan said.
"That's when we started talking to other people about relocating the council's own fleet and also looking to reduce their number of leased car parks ... to get additional car parking in [Church St].''
When asked why that was not communicated with stakeholders, Mr Theelan said it was because the council was focused on finding an alternative.
