Laura Kvigstad, Auckland Council reporter
funded by New Zealand on Air
Auckland Transport (AT) is starting the financial year on the “front foot” by raising parking fees to match market levels.
At the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on May 18, members gave feedback on AT’s draft statement of intent.
Mayor Wayne Brown said parking fees needed to be raised to match the market price.
“I don’t know why we are subsidising people to park in the city centre,” Brown said.
He said there was also an issue with parking fines which required government intervention in order to change.
“That is not helping because the parking fines are less than the parking charge in some places.”
Brown’s comments prompted AT’s finance executive general manager Mark Laing to confirm AT was aiming to increase parking fees to match market levels on July 1.
“We wanted to start the year on the front foot,” Laing said.
Cr Julie Fairey wanted to know what the increased revenue was going to be spent on.
Laing said AT currently had a $30 million hole in parking revenue.
“The increase is effectively plugging a hole in the budget. That is necessary to help us deliver on the $375 million hole in the council budget,” Laing said.
He said AT was still finalising its budget but would be working on it internally over the next four weeks.
“We are reliant on that increase to actually help us deliver on our budget.”
Chair John Watson said parking sometimes involved equity issues but AT appeared to understand things were not always so black and white.
“There are other bigger issues involved in this case, not least of which would be conceivably pricing the city centre out of suburban commuters or visitors,” Watson said.
