Ash Bolt
The City of Greater Geelong is calling for businesses owners, shoppers and residents to share their thoughts on parking in Pakington Street in Geelong West.
Business owners and managers of Pakington Street businesses have been invited to attend to workshops on public parking issues while community members can provide feedback online.
City planning and economy director Gareth Smith said the feedback collected would be used to guide the development of a public parking plan for the much-loved commercial strip.
“We want to work with Pakington Street business owners and managers and the broader community to understand how we can better manage existing public parking spaces to cater for the needs of businesses, local community and visitors,” Mr Smith said.
The Final Pakington Street and Gordon Avenue Urban Design Framework, which was partially endorsed by council in December last year, includes an action to prepare a public parking plan for Pakington Street North and Heritage Core Precincts.
The Pakington Street North precinct covers the area from Church Street to Waratah and Wellington streets, with the Heritage Core precinct stretching down to Autumn Street.
The public parking plan would analyse the parking conditions and needs of the area and could provide the basis for a parking overlay or other response mechanisms to manage parking conditions in the precincts.
“We’ve fast-tracked the action to develop the public parking plan as this was a key area of interest from residents and businesses during previous 30 weeks of community engagement, particularly the availability of on-street parking in commercial areas,” Mr Smith said.
The parking plan study will focus on the existing public parking spaces servicing businesses along Pakington Street and the public parking facilities behind businesses, but won’t include parking in nearby residential areas, private parking facilities or the creation of extra public parking spaces, which will be addressed in future studies.
Feedback will close on Monday, March 28.
Feedback can be provided online on the city’s Have Your Say website.
