South West shire walks back plans to introduce timed parking to growing shopping centre

A South West shire has backed off with plans to introduce time-restricted parking at a popular shopping centre in a rapidly growing suburb.

The Shire of Harvey voted not to introduced time-restricted parking to the central strip at the main entrance to the Treendale shopping centre during their most recent council meeting.

The plans initially came to the shire in September, where councillors put forth a proposal to see 97 parking bays outside the centre slapped with one hour restrictions for parallel parking and two hour restrictions for those in the central island.

During the September meeting councillors voted to put the proposal to the community for consultation and received 10 responses opposing the plans.

Cr Craig Carbone said he believed the council should introduce time-restricted parking to the centre, saying the new development adjacent to the existing shopping centre would likely increase parking demand.

“I think this is only going to exasperate the problem in that central strip,” he said.

Cr Carbone said with new take away restaurants soon to open in the area, there would be a growing demand for short-term parking.

He said in discussions with Cr Dakota Krispyn, who had left the meeting due to a conflict of interest, he was told the centralised parking area regularly had staff parking there for the day.

Cr Joe Capogreco was in favour of the motion to drop the proposed parking rules saying the council were basing the discussion off assumptions with “no real” data.

“But, we have got 10 people who have voiced their opinion and said they didn’t want it, and they are all ratepayers who live in our community,” he said.

“If we don’t go for their recommendation, we’re not listening to the people who have taken the time to comment.”

Cr Capogreco said the council should not be putting things out for public comment if they were unwilling to listen to the public’s feedback.

Cr John Bromham said it was clear the Treendale area was changing rapidly, but the council needed to consider what residents wanted.

“I think we need to let this run its course and maybe if there’s issues, we can look at it down the track,” he said.

The motion was passed 8-2 with only Cr Carbone and Cr Wendy Dickinson voting against.