2 February 2009 Submission Notes of Cathy Solomon

These are the notes to which Cathy Solomon spoke at the meeting on 2 February 2009 of the Fendalton/Waimairi Community Board Works, Traffic and Environment Committee in opposition to the Proposed Merivale Parking Plan.

To the Members of The Fendalton/Waimairi Community Board: Cheryl Colley, Sally Buck, Faimeh Burke, Val Carter, Jamie Gough, Mike Wall and Andrew Yoon.

Submission Notes from Cathy Solomon

2 February 2009

1191 individuals signed our submission forms. Of these 1055 completely opposed the PMPP.

I spoke to many residents, ratepayers, businesses and employees and was surprised by strength of their feelings against the scheme.

1. A few quotations that reflect the feelings of the community:

“The present situation is bearable. More planning will bring grief. If it is a plan to make money, then it will bring anger as well.”

Having lived in Murray Place since 1999 the traffic has always been busy Mon-Fri but manageable for us and our friends. We would be very disappointed to see parking signs and/or painted lines etc on our beautiful street.”

“This is a residential area & if there is a parking problem due to the commercial area in Merivale _ then they (the businesses there) should be made to address it.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  From various people

2. Some of the issues that surfaced from these discussions

·        We choose to live in this neighbourhood because of the amenities            

o       the restaurants, shops, banks, post office, medical facilities, etc.

o       the closeness to the city

o       parking issues seen as a minor inconvenience rather than a problem

           

Most people feel that 120 will make the situation in Merivale worse.

Cutting down parking, even on one side of the road, is going to penalise residents. It will cut the available parks in half and double the demand on the free side of the street.

·        Many residents worry that the free side will be parked up first thing in the morning.

·        Traffic on the roads with P120 will increase as potential parkers cruise looking for recently vacated places.

·        Nowhere could I find any evidence of the efficacy of restricting parking on one side of the street. Were any studies or reports discovered or commissioned that found evidence to support this solution? Have any other cities used it successfully?

  

·        Concern that parking restrictions in residential areas will lower property values.

·        Businesses and employees were worried about the safety of employees as they have to hunt further and further afield for parking spaces.

·        Paragraph 20 of the Agenda indicates that “each and every business owner was visited by council representatives…” However, paragraph 32 (p. 11) claims 5 businesses responded. But where is the data from all the visits? Why wasn’t this information included in the report? Is there a summary of concerns from businesses and medical practices/facilities?

·        Disability parking concerns. If parking on the roads around Merivale become restricted to P120, 60 & 30, have plans been drawn up to include enough disability parks? Problems near Nurse Maud and other places.

·        Over the years many of the roads included in the PMPP have been upgraded, beautified, narrowed and as a result lost parking spaces. Many residents blame to council for the loss of these parking places and for not considering other solutions such as angle parking when the upgrades were taking place.

If one were to look at the numbers of people we found who oppose the PMPP as well as consider paragraphs 33 and 52 of today’s agenda (“Analysis of the results by residential zones shows that the majority of the residents are not supportive of the PMPP in its initially proposed state. …”), there seems no mandate to go ahead with the PMPP.