Revolt over parking plan for Hamilton Gardens
Charging $5 to park at the Hamilton Gardens will have a ‘‘devastating’’ effect on the visitor attraction’s popularity, its staunchest advocates say.
At the Hamilton City Council’s long term plan hearings yesterday, representatives from both the Hamilton Gardens Development Project Governance Group and the Friends of the Hamilton Gardens implored councillors not to introduce the proposed parking charge, which they say will ‘‘chase people away’’.
Instead, a fee to enter the enclosed gardens for non-Hamiltonians over 18 years old would be the best way to create money from the Cobham Drive landmark.
In the draft plan, the council asked residents for their views on a suggested $5 charge for cars and $20 for buses to park at the gardens, which would generate $500,000 per year for the council coffers.
That money would be used to fund ongoing developments in the gardens.
It was a scheme that would prove more of a powerful defoliant than some kind of financial fertiliser, according to Friends of Hamilton Gardens president Marleina Ruka.
She said when the council revealed in December that a parking fee was up for consideration ‘‘we were inundated with feedback . . . all voicing a similar sentiment’’.
‘‘Charging for parking will chase people away and will have a devastating effect on its use by the local communities as a place of health and wellbeing.
‘‘There are so many alternatives to generate revenue that will not alienate the very stakeholders and investors that have supported the gardens for so many years.’’
Fellow Friends member Virginia Graham said learning about the pay-for-your-park proposal in a story in the
Waikato Times had been ‘‘like a bolt from the blue.’’
The Friends have set themselves a goal of raising $420,000 for features in the upcoming Ancient Egyptian, Medieval, Baroque and Pasifika gardens by 2022 – a target they had already accomplished.
Charlotte Isaac, representing the governance group, said the council should defer the parking plan in its entirety until the group had investigated and provided the council with their own report on the feasibility of instead charging an entry fee.
Such investigations had occasionally been conducted in the past but, given the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, now was the perfect time to take a fresh look, she said.
Isaac pointed out that nowhere in the council’s recently-approved management plan for the gardens had there been a proposal to charge for parking.
‘‘Charging people to park at a public park is not something that [the] council appears to do anywhere else, and we think that may raise a concern about the potential for negative public perception about access to the river and other gardens areas that are not part of the enclosed gardens.’’
A parking charge could also raise unreasonable expectations about the quality of the car park itself, she said.
‘‘Some of it’s sealed, some of it’s gravel, some of it’s grass.’’
Hamilton city councillors are this week hearing about 300 in-person presentations on the long term plan – a fraction of the total 5674 submissions received.
The hearings will continue on Thursday and next week.