Free Saturday parking returns to Tauranga CBD

Paid parking impacted the number of people visiting the city on weekends according to a council report. Photo: Sun Media / John Borren

Parking in Tauranga's city centre will be free on Saturdays and after 5pm on weekdays after it was found charging for it affected the number of visitors.

Tauranga City Council reintroduced paid on-street parking in December 2022 to encourage a higher turnover of carparks, because CBD workers were using them to park all day.

The paid parking "may be impacting city centre footfall and average spending by those visiting the city", a report by council parking strategy manager Reece Wilkinson said.

The decision to reduce on-street paid parking hours from 6pm to 5pm and make it free on Saturdays was made at a council meeting on Monday.

The changes will begin from this coming Saturday, 3 June.

Wilkinson told the commissioners the parking rates were "working as they should".

He said the majority of on-street parking transactions were between one to two hours and there was a 17 percent increase in daily parking transactions since December.

"That means that we are getting that turnover that we asked for.

"What we're also seeing, partly due other stuff going on in the city... is the business owners are starting to see a drop in footfall outside of business hours."

Wilkinson said the parking changes were something the council could do quickly to help businesses.

Commission chair Anne Tolley said for the commission, the introduction of paid parking was more about getting turnover in the city centre than for financial reasons.

"Our concern has been around assisting those business owners as much as we possibly can.

"We're going to have to do more to bring people into the city on the weekends and out of business hours."

Commissioner Bill Wasley said he had watched "cafes empty out" on weekends when a parking warden had come along, so free parking on Saturday would encourage people into the CBD.

Council director of transport Brendan Bisley said the council would have to monitor how many CBD workers parked all day on the street on Saturdays.

"A lot of the workers find it very convenient to park on-street all day. It was part of the reason we originally put Saturdays in there.

"It'll be just this balance of ensuring that there's available parking for those coming in for eating out or whatever," he said.

Commissioner Stephen Selwood asked for staff to report back on how effective the changes were in six months' time.

"It's a really important issue. We've got to do the best we can to get parking working as best we can," he said.

Speaking after the meeting, Downtown Tauranga chair Ashleigh Gee said the organisation had been advocating to get the parking revised.

There was a "dramatic impact on the ground" with the return of Saturday car parking charges, she said.

"Hopefully by giving the free car parking back, it'll just help our retailers and our hospitality guys to attract people back into the city on the weekend," Gee said.

She said there was a lot going on that was out of the businesses' control, including redevelopment and the cost-of-living crisis.

"The amount of uncertainty and current construction and development starting to happen in the city, everyone's positive in what will happen once it kicks off.

"But it's just this point between now and when the contractors and things start showing up in the city.

"It's just a bit of a waiting game."

The city centre has been dealing with empty buildings for years and there are a number of sites under construction or being redeveloped, including the $304 million civic precinct Te Manawataki O Te Papa.

"I think everyone's pretty positive in the changes that are happening. It's just getting through it," Gee said.

The on-street parking charges for Monday to Friday 8am-5pm was $2 per hour for the first two hours then $5 for every hour after that.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air