Council and ATP to meet over parking saga

The City of Sydney rejected a proposal to force the Australian Technology Park (ATP) to provide free parking for its employees last week.

The ATP charges employees for using the company’s car park which has caused residents and ATP employees to  compete for the free car spaces on the street.

Desley Haas, spokesperson for the Alexandria Residents Action Group (ARAG) has praised Council’s commitment to solving the problem but fears the ATP’s apathy will hamper any progress.

“For those of us who have been fighting for three years, we’re exhausted and and we suspect that Roy’s (Roy Wakelin-King Managing Director of the ATP) attitude and stance may make it difficult for Council to resolve the matter,” she said.

“Whether or not they get a result will depend on the attitude of Roy.”

For ARAG a result will mean the ATP at least temporarily opens up a free parking space for its employees and the ATP will admit its contribution to the parking congestion.

The ATP proposed two key solutions within a Parking Study of the area: to encourage tenants and visitors of the ATP to use public transport and to provided discounted parking for tenants.

The plan was released last year but residents near the site have seen few changes.

Ms Haas said the plan was biased towards the ATP.

“If you look at the aim of the study it does not include the ATP site. How can you solve the problem if you ignore the source?,” she said. “They have been very clever.”

The preliminary development master plan of the ATP outlined potential conflict between residents and the business over parking concerns.

Page 42 of the plan states the ATP should: “Protect existing and proposed residential areas from the impact of increased traffic.”

Jim Patsouris, a resident of Alexandria and member of ARAG said the ATP should be more accountable, starting with at least some temporary free parking for its employees.

In its plan, the ATP said it encourages open communication with the residents around the site. But Ms Haas said  the ATP has not communicated with the residents since January.

“We have been corresponding with the council’s traffic engineers unit and we assumed our issues would filter up to the mayor, but it doesn’t appear that that happened,” she said.

The Council and the ATP has not set a meeting time to discuss a potential solution to this problem.