The Morisset carpark is set to temporarily lose some car spaces, but it will usher in a major revamp of parking in the Queanbeyan CBD.
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The Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council passed a motion on Wednesday night that will lease 30 spaces in the Morisset carpark to the Queanbeyan police for up to 18 months while their new station is built.
However part of council’s motion included introducing smart parking into the CBD carparks, which would feature electroboards displaying the number of available spaces in a particular carpark and also nearby carparks.
The plan could eventually introduce upgraded lighting, CCTV, CBD wifi and electric vehicle charging stations into the CBD plus pedestrian laneways to connect carparks and green spaces.
Decked or multi-storey carparking will be another addition to the CBD at a later stage of the overhaul.
The carparks will have cameras at entrances and exits, which would calculate the number of available spaces.
Councillor Peter Bray asked during the meeting whether the boards would give separate figures for general car spaces and disabled spaces.
General manager Peter Tegart said the cameras did not have the capability to discern which spaces were being used, but a future system using pads in individual spaces would have the capacity to do so.
To compensate for the loss of car spaces the council will create formal parking at the old nursery site at the Collett carpark.
The police will also have four spaces reserved on Morisset Street for first response vehicles.
The plan also suggests an increase of patrols by parking enforcement officers to improve the turnover of cars in timed car spaces.
The project will be jointly funded by Commonwealth grant funding through the Smart Cities scheme and council reserves, amounting to $140,000 each, and a $230,000 contribution from the NSW Police.
The equipment installed in the first stage to accommodate the police can later be re-used by the council in upgrading CBD parking.
Parking remains a topical issue with the council waiving a developer contribution for carparking associated with the new cinema approved to be built above Kmart.
The council said access to nearby parking was a factor for waiving the fee.
