Tag Archives: car-parking

Council’s Parking Plan is a weird beast indeed

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Council staff are now finalising a draft Parking Plan (GPP) for our city. If you want to learn more about Parking Plans there is precious little to go on. In this post I will attempt to describe the weirdness of the Parking Plan concept.

The concept of a Parking Plan is based on a single paragraph (read the original) which says:

“the site is subject to a parking plan for the area adopted by council, in which case parking provision (spaces or cash-in-lieu) must be in accordance with that plan;“

In essence, it says that if a proposed development is in a place covered by a Parking Plan then some or all of the usual State rules for off-street parking might be over-ridden by the Parking Plan.

The first weird thing … there is no other explanation or definition of what a Parking Plan looks like or the information it contains. Council’s approach has been to base its structure on the look of the Parking Code in the State rules.

The second weird thing … is that it is “adopted by council”. Councils have taken this to mean that the entire process of designing, writing, and putting a Parking Plan in place is controlled by council.

The third weird thing … is that our council has, despite the Parking Plan affecting the application of an integral part of the city’s planning scheme, used a variation of its usual policy development process so far … staff draft, consultation with public and stakeholders, etc.

The next weird thing … is that council has, as is usual for its policies, set a review period (four years). Reviews of many council policies are staff reviews only, done with no public visibility and presented to an open council meeting as a fait accompli. This will not do for the Parking Plan which must incorporate the same level of public consultation used for the first version.

The Parking Plan concept seems to be a fudge to the state planning scheme to allow councils to tweak off-street parking rules in their city without any external oversight by the Tasmanian Planning Commission (or anyone else for that matter).

Given the lack of information about Parking Plans, some questions arise.

The text I quoted above referred to “a Parking Plan”, not “the Parking Plan”. Does that mean that Glenorchy can have more than one Parking Plan, each relating to specific portions of the city?

If so, it could create a new Parking Plan quite quickly without waiting for the scheduled review date of the first plan. That might be useful. For example, it would allow council to create a Parking Plan for the site of any proposed development if it regarded the development as being of sufficiently great significance to the city?

And finally, there is the interaction between council and the planning authority. If council adoption of a Parking Plan takes immediate effect, it could create a new Parking Plan to suit a Development Application that council has received while assessment is still under way.

In conclusion, many readers might find a discussion on off-street parking a little weird. It may be … but it is also an internationally controversial and contested subject.

Many cities, large and small, across the world have removed all mandatory off-street parking requirements in part or all of the city. Many others have reduced the requirements. Many others have ongoing argument and debate.

A couple of the most common arguments for removing/reducing mandatory off-street parking requirements are:

a) Reducing the amount of space for parking provides more space for living space. What is not used for parking can be used for accommodation.

b) The developer knows best what amount and type of parking is most appropriate for the proposed development. So why not let them decide the quantity? Council’s interest should be in the size, design, and safety of any parking spaces.

It is of course not as simple as this in reality. For example, if there is little parking provided for a residential development then the availability of travel options such as public transport becomes an important topic for those without their own vehicle.

This is no trivial matter and should be treated seriously.

Mandatory off-street parking requirements more trouble than they’re worth

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Tomorrow (10/11/2025) I will attend a meeting of the Glenorchy Planning Authority (GPA), a meeting with exactly one item on the agenda.

An item I find utterly exasperating.

An item necessary because the building in question, according to planning rules,  has too few parking spaces for its use.

An item necessary despite no response from any member of the public when the Development Application (DA) was advertised in the Mercury.

An item necessary because no Council staff member has the power to “determine applications with residential car parking discretions” (full list of delegations). Hence the Planning Authority must decide the matter.

But the situation arises originally because the Tasmanian Planning Scheme (TPS) contains an algorithm for calculating the minimum amount of off-street parking required for the use to which the site will be put. If the amount of parking in a DA is not at least as much as the algorithm says, the DA does not have an “acceptable” parking solution and must be assessed against the “performance criteria”. Take a look at the algorithm and the table C2.1 it refers to; they both fit on only eight A4 pages.

The Parking Plan

What is remarkably timely about this particular DA is its timing. It comes while council staff are preparing a Parking Plan for the city of Glenorchy, a plan which is intended to “override the number of car parking spaces specified in the planning scheme and reduce car parking numbers in specific areas.”

Council employed GHD, an international consultancy, to “determine and summarise potential adjustments to minimum car parking rates for development applications within key areas of the Glenorchy LGA that may be applied in a Parking Plan for the municipality” and provide a report to council on the results. You can read the 12 August 2025 version of the GHD report on Minimum Parking Rates.

The GHD report states “evidence does not support a minimum parking requirement” and consequently shows, in order from most effective to least effective) options as:

  1. Removal of car parking minimum rates
  2. Partial removal by-location of car parking minimum rates
  3. Partial removal by location and size of development
  4. Reduction in minimum-parking rates (by location and/or use class)
  5. Adopt widely accepted rates where appropriate

What is particularly disturbing about the first draft of the parking plan is that it adopts, without any explanation, the option GHD regards as the least effective, option 5, “Adopt widely accepted rates where appropriate”. The result was a decrease across the board of about twenty percent.

The first draft plan, if adopted essentially as is, would not improve the situation. The item on tomorrow’s planning authority agenda would still come to the GPA for decision.

We heard at the parking plan workshop that council were being encouraged to “be brave” in their decision-making. I hope that council will do so, change its mind, and accept the consultant’s number one recommendation to reduce minimum off-street parking requirements by 100% ….. all the way to zero.