Rush for Al Khail Gate parking permits
RESIDENTS THRONG RTA’S AL MANARA AND AL KIFAF CENTRES TO COMPLETE PROCESS BEFORE SUNDAY’S DEADLINE
Residents of Al Khail Gate are rushing to buy Dh2,500 annual parking permits with the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) set to implement paid parking in the Dubai community on Sunday.
On May 17, Gulf News first reported that the RTA would activate the paid parking meters in the residential community in Al Quoz on June 17.
The meters were installed across the two phases of the community after the RTA took over the management and operation of parking lots from the community’s management on April 4. Following the paid parking partnership agreement between the two entities, RTA announced paid parking tariff of Dh4 per hour and a maximum daily fee of Dh32 per 24 hours throughout the year.
Quoting the RTA call centre, Gulf News also reported that RTA’s two customer happiness centres in Dubai Municipality’s Al Manara Centre and Al Kifaf Centre had started issuing the seasonal permit cards for residents from May 15.
RTA had also put up boards notifying a fine of Dh200 for illegal parking in paid parking slots reserved for residents with seasonal permit cards (S 365).
Though no official announcement about the date of implementing the paid parking in the community was made either by the property management or by the RTA yet, some residents said the parking meters are now showing the message ‘parking fees applied from 17/06/18’.
RTA’s annual permits exclusively issued for Al Khail Gate show the issue date as June 17, 2018 and expiry date as June 17, 2019. RTA announced options of quarterly and half yearly permits as well.
N. Sudheer, a resident of phase two, said he was unaware of when paid parking would start till he got to know about it from his neighbours who bought the permit.
He said it was surprising that there was no official communication from the management about this though they had distributed brochures explaining the new paid parking system and zoning plan.
Approval for each permit
RTA’s customer happiness centre in Al Manara Centre has witnessed a huge rush of applicants for permits.
“I reached there by 8.15am today. There were already some 50 others from Al Khail Gate waiting for the RTA counter to open,” said T.K. Ghosh.
He said tokens were issued only to the first row of applicants. “Some of us were allowed to submit the documents and make the payment in cash. They said they would call me once the permit is ready. The rest were mostly those who didn’t bring cash. They wanted to use credit cards. They were asked to go to Al Kifaf Centre which has more counters.”
S. Jabbar said he went to Al Manara Centre twice on Sunday. “When I went around 11.45am, they said morning tokens were already over and asked me to check again later. When I went at 4pm, they had not completed issuing permits to those who got tokens in the morning.”
This morning, he was asked to go to Al Kifaf Centre.
Tenants who visited Al Kifaf Centre said that after they submit the documents, it takes some time to get the approval for each permit. Once it comes, applicants will be called again to make the payment and receive the permit.