MP takes up WelTec parking problems

BY SIMON EDWARDS AND NICHOLAS BOYACK

"Residents' only" parking and speed humps to slow drivers down may be part of the mix to solve traffic problems in residential streets around WelTec, Hutt South MP Trevor Mallard says.

Mr Mallard says the parking shortage around the technology institute has vexed residents, students and visitors for six or seven years. A proposal to create a new automotive engineering facility by extending N Block on Cuba St, with 35 fewer off-site car parks than is stipulated under the District Plan, is "on hold" in the resource consent process. Residents are livid that if planning permission is granted, it will only add to parking pressure on surrounding streets.

Mr Mallard intends facilitating meetings between residents, WelTec and Hutt City Council to try and find solutions. No date has been set, because he still wants to discuss with WelTec-appointed consultants whether the best way forward is to present a range of possible solutions, or a single proposition for people to react to.

"This issue needs to be sorted before any expansion of WelTec can be considered. It's currently not good enough that the streets are getting choked up and residents can't park by their own homes.

"We need to push cars further away and consider improving public transport routes," he says.

"We almost certainly need time-limited zones, traffic calming and residents-only parking spaces, possibly on the other side of the same street."

Residents-only parking operates in Wellington in suburbs such as Mt Victoria and Mt Cook. Mr Mallard says the Hutt wouldn't have to 'reinvent the wheel'. We could employ the Capital's car sticker system and administration, but it could be enforced by Hutt City Council staff. His own "preliminary" view is that there should be no cost to nearby residents.

Such a scheme might also be useful in the choked streets around Hutt Hospital.

Mr Mallard says he would have fielded half a dozen complaints about traffic and parking around WelTec in the last 12 months, "but for such a specific issue, for people to feel strongly enough to raise it (with an MP), that's saying something".

A music teacher's ability to take lessons in her home is being jeopardised because her students can't get a handy park. He says a doctor who works shifts had told him if he comes home in the middle of the day, he has to park so far away from his house "he's in for a 10 or 15-minute walk".

Traffic-calming measures such as speed humps, especially in streets running east-west, could reduce perceived safety risk issues.

However, city council officers appear to lack enthusiasm for Residents' Parking Scheme around the WelTec campus. In a memo to the Petone Community Board, senior traffic engineer Wayne King says there have been two previous attempts to set up such schemes in the Hutt Valley.

In 2007 the council looked at setting up a RPS near WelTec but found little public support.

He suggests people do not always understand such schemes and believe that it will mean they get a park outside their house, and that only residents will be able to park in the street.

To administer the scheme, the council has to charge a fee and that is likely to cause a problem, he says.

"The application of a fee will be an issue. Earlier responses have made it clear that residents feel it is a WelTec problem and not a resident's problem so the residents do not see why they should effectively solve a problem not of their making."

Mr King also advises against extending two and four-hour parking limit areas, as that will only result in students "shuffling" their cars and annoying neighbours.

If the board still wants officers to look at setting up a RPS, Mr King raises the issue of re-examining paid parking in Petone.

Implementing a residents' parking scheme could take 12 months, he adds.

Anybody interested in attending the meetings being arranged by Mr Mallard should contact his Petone Electorate Office on 04 568 2949.

- Hutt News