Group warns of heavy parking hit
A SURFERS Paradise lobby group opposed to the sale of the Bruce Bishop car park has revealed its loss will remove up to 40 per cent of available spaces in the tourism heart.
Once the car park is sold for redevelopment, Surfers will lose 1640 spaces out of the 4073 that Save Surfers Paradise spokeswoman Deborah Kelly says are currently available in the district from Cypress Ave in the north down to the Q1 tower.
When the site is redeveloped, council conditions call for 740 spaces to be returned for parking. Ms Kelly believes drivers won’t see any of that during the building’s redevelopment.
She said she had crunched the numbers, using her own staff to contact businesses offering private paid parking (1932 spaces) and adding them to figures already on the public record for council parking (1895 available at the Bruce Bishop and Cypress Avenue car parks), and a further 246 spaces available from on-street parking.
Ms Kelly said she used Google Maps to count street parking, but then walked the streets to check those figures.
“That’s an accurate count,’’ she said.
But she warned her survey had revealed an incremental decline in parking as spaces were lost while construction was under way and also to an increase in loading zones and taxi parking. About 200 spaces had also gone to make way for the light rail.
“We’re not opposed to the trams or the cultural precinct,’’ Ms Kelly said. (Sale of the car park is intended to help fund the arts and culture precinct and a pedestrian bridge that would be part of the development).
“This is an argument about retaining parking in Surfers. Since the tram went in, parking in Bruce Bishop has gone up 23 per cent.’’
This was the opposite of what city planners intended when they hoped locals would leave their cars at home and use public transport.
“To be fair to the tram, it runs in a straight line from A to B. It doesn’t service 90 per cent of the population or the day-trippers,’’ she said.
“Our issue is the ongoing bread and butter issue of parking. Any CBD needs centralised parking.’’
Motorist Scott Davey, of Labrador, said losing Bruce Bishop would make it hard for anyone visiting the area.
“Even finding parking outside of work (times) is impossible,” he said. “You can always take a chance on the Esplanade (but the lack of parking) makes life hard, especially for residents, I imagine.”
The council voted in May to sell off the car park and former transit centre, which could fetch up to $100 million.
The decision sparked furious debate about parking and heavy criticism about selling off land that was gifted to the city in 1938 by Charles Hicks, on the condition it be retained as a park.
Save Surfers Paradise, which was the brainchild of high-profile traders and residents including Ms Kelly, retired judge Clive Wall, solicitor John Punch and media and property investor Hans Torv, argues that average use of the Bruce Bishop car park is almost double the 640 claimed by council.
“During the day, 1260 cars use it on average every day,” Ms Kelly said. “If they’re not there, where do they park?’’
THIS IS AN ARGUMENT ABOUT RETAINING PARKING IN SURFERS DEBORAH KELLY