Parking tariff increase

Citys parking tariffs are set to increase this July.

On-street parkers in the city will fork out more for their parking as the tariffs are set to increase by 4.5% from July 1.

This has been an ongoing issue for residents and motorists in Sea Point who complained that the tariffs were too high in the area.

Ward 54 councillor Nicola Jowell said for the past two years, they’d been trying to find a solution to this, including having met with the mayoral committee member for transport and the manager for business planning in the department.

She said they argued that the ideal scenario would be for the tariff to be amended to what it was before July 2017.

“Although we presented what we felt was a sound argument to support this, it was not accepted by the officials,” she said.

However, there might be light at the end of this tunnel as Ms Jowell said they’ve agreed to look at a number of policy changes that could provide some relief to those who park on the streets of Sea Point.

“This is not a quick process and can take at least six months but the department is committed to exploring this with us and addressing these potential changes,” she said.

In 2017, the City categorised Sea Point as a high-demand area due to its parking use levels.

The then mayoral committee for transport and urban development, Brett Herron, had said that the tariff increases for on-street parking were based on the City’s Parking Policy that stated that they must support the City’s travel demand management strategy – thus, the tariffs should motivate residents to rather make use of public transport so that the dependency on private cars was be reduced.

He said the tariffs intended to improve sustainable travel choices and support desirable parking behaviour in business districts to, among others, ensure a high turnover of on-street parking bays where there was a high demand for on-street parking and increase the City’s revenues to improve public transport services and mobility in general.

A Sea Point business manager who did not want to be named in the paper, said the kerbside parking tariffs were a huge concern because they were forced to pay for their clients. She said they only had one loading zone for their busy store and as most of their clients used credit cards, they often didn’t have cash to pay for parking, which resulted in them having to pay for their clients’ parking.

This, she said, was bad for business.

Parking marshal Yandisa Gcezengane, said people often gave them problems when they had to pay. “Our minimum is R4.40 for 0 to 15 minutes and people get angry when they don’t park for that full 15 minutes and still have to pay,” she said.

Ms Gcezengane said sometimes people refused to pay for their parking, claiming that their cars were not safe anyway. “They get angry at the fact that it’s stated in our slips that all vehicles are parked at own risk and sometimes we’re forced to call law enforcement officers and they get fined R300,” she said.

Responding to the matter, the City’s mayoral committee member for transport, Felicity Purchase, said the parking tariffs for on-street parking bays were approved by Council once a year, as part of the annual budgeting process and after public participation.

“It is important to note that there was no increase in on-street parking bay tariffs for the current financial year ending June 30. Thus, there has been no increase in the tariff for on-street parking bays since 1 July 1, 2017, meaning motorists using on-street parking bays have been paying the same tariff for the past two years,” she said.