By Luke Voogt
City Hall will reverse controversial parking fee hikes next Monday after council voted to roll back the changes last night.
Council held a special meeting after City Hall this week more than doubled some all-day parking fees without prior advertisement.
Before the Indy went to press yesterday afternoon councillor Anthony Aitken told the paper council planned to roll back fees to 2018/2019 prices.
“Any fees and charges that haven’t been advertised should not be increased,” he said.
“It’s been poorly implemented and the community deserve some lenience with this process because of the way it’s been handled by the organisation.”
Cr Aitken declined to rule out City Hall bureaucrats re-increasing fees later in the year with appropriate advertisement.
“You can always put them back up,” he admitted.
But City Hall would be very unlikely to make changes to parking fees again this financial year given the “level of outcry from the community”, Cr Aitken said.
“I think council is quite sensitive to how the community feel about this.”
All-day parking rose on Monday from $5.80 to $13, almost 125 per cent, in some parking spaces on Bellerine and Brougham streets, and Eastern Beach, Ritchie Bvd and Western Beach.
Some all-day spaces rose from $6.80 to $13 while additional increases affected several other areas in central Geelong.
City Hall “unintentionally” omitted the hikes in budget papers, only outlining increases in “high volume” parking areas, according to a council statement.
Earlier in the week chief executive officer (CEO) Martin Cutter took responsibility for the oversight, Cr Aitken said.
“The advice that we’ve received was the sign off was done under the delegated authority of the CEO.”
Eddy Kontelj vented his anger on social media at councillors and the community being “totally blindsided” by the changes.
“This is wrong and we will now act very promptly to address this,” Cr Kontelj said.
A City Hall statement this morning confirmed council had voted unanimously to the following changes to 2019/2020 budgeted fees:
· Capped all-day on-street parking from $13 back to $5.80;
· Three-hour parking capped from $7 back to $5.80;
· Four-hour parking capped from $8 back to $3.50; and
· Four-hour parking capped (high occupancy) from $9 back to $5.80.
Council also instructed City Hall to review all budgeted 2019/2020 fees and identify increases not included in the budget consultation process.
Both Mr Cutter and Geelong Mayor Bruce Harwood apologised for this week’s increases.
