Resident Parking Permits Needed in Christchurch

Intensification and fewer new homes with off street parking means residents are being left with no-where to park their vehicles.

Innes council candidate Ali Jones, says she is speaking with residents regularly and the issue of clogged streets with nowhere for residents to park, is often being raised.

“As we intensify close to key activity areas - the city, malls, schools and so on - the demand for parking from workers is on the rise. Combine that with hundreds of new homes being built in St Albans, for example, and residents cannot park their vehicles outside or near to their homes,” says Jones.

A number of architects, developers and builders have contacted Jones in the past year raising the issue. Their concerns relate to a number of submitted developments being sent back to them with the ‘suggestion’ they remove garages or off-street parking completely.

“Some of them are happy with that as it means they can build more units on a site but others are concerned about the issues this will cause. And I agree. Several months ago I raised the issue at our community board, and we were told there’s “little appetite” from council officers to look at this problem. I will make it a priority to look at a resident permit parking system for Christchurch so that residents can park outside or near their homes.”

Jones says there’s the “remnants of a resident permit parking system” in Christchurch, however there are only a handful of very old permits still allocated, and it appears the system isn’t really operating as such.

“It’s fairly standard to have resident permit parking in areas that attract outside car parking, to ensure residents can park their cars. Just look at Sydney, London, and closer to home in Auckland,” she says. “I understand that for $70 a year, residents can buy a digital annual resident permit or even a day permit for tradespeople or visitors which can be done very simply on an app.”

Jones says making our streets, communities and city accessible for as many people as possible as often as possible, must be a focus of the next council.

“I will advocate for a resident permit system to be implemented as soon as possible. We need a majority of people around the council table  with an appetite  to apply commonsense problem solving to decision making, so with papers already starting to arrive in letterboxes, it’s now in the hands of the voters,” she says.