Car sharing takes precious parking spaces

Demand for car sharing is on the rise, yet Waverley Council is hesitant to give up more on-street parking.

A popular car share company has asked Waverley Council for 15 new on-street parking spaces to meet customer demand.

Yet at last Tuesday’s Finance, Ethics and Strategic Planning Committee meeting, a number of Waverley councillors revealed they were hesitant to give up the parking spaces.

Councillor Sloan said Council had received complaints from residents whose on-street parking spaces had been taken away by car share vehicles.

Councillor Sloan said she was worried Waverley residents would feel “disempowered in terms of rank” if more of their on-street parking was given to car share vehicles.

To mirror her sentiment, the Councillor suggested an amendment about car sharing in the Draft Waverley Transport Plan, which will go on public exhibition for six weeks in July/August 2011.

In the stakeholder section of the Draft Plan, “easy access to car share vehicles” was identified as one of many “potential strategies” to support young people in Waverley who have no use for a car and “avoid car ownership.”

Councillor Sloan suggested this be changed to: “The provision of fiscally responsible access to car share vehicles.”

Under the Council’s current contract with the car sharing company in question, which ends in November 2012, Council cannot charge the company for any new car share parking spaces.

Yet Council can refuse the company extra parking spaces.

Waverley Mayor, Sally Betts, suggested at the Committee meeting that Council could simply refuse the request for more car sharing parking spaces or ask the company to pay.

“If they don’t want to pay, they don’t get them,” she said.

Two car sharing services currently operate in the Waverley Local Government Area- GoGet and Green Car Share.

In May and June 2011, Council received 11 complaints from residents about two additional proposed car share parking spaces on Roscoe Street, Bondi Beach and Gowrie Street, Bondi Junction. The Gowrie Street space, opposite St James Reserve, was approved, while the Roscoe Street space (which received eight of the 11 complaints) was not – in response to “residents who felt another car share space would reduce the already-low availability of parking spaces” in that area.

GoGet spokesperson Bruce Jeffreys said the only reason car sharing companies were asking for more spaces in Waverley was because people used the service.

“If we weren’t there, Bondi would be filled with hundreds of extra cars,” he said.

By Rebecca Isaacs