$5m carpark plan fast-tracked

Elizabeth St's carparking building will be getting an extra storey much earlier than planned.

A$5 million project to build an extra floor on Tauranga's Elizabeth St carpark building has been fast-tracked by six years.

It replaces the timetable agreed by the council only two months ago in which the priority for the next three years was to spend $24 million on a new 650-space parking building at the northern end of the city centre.

Yesterday's controversial turnaround saw the council add $2.3 million to the $2.7 million tagged for the new parking building. Five million dollars was the "conservative cost" to add 110 leased carparks to the Elizabeth St building by next June.

Postponing construction of the new building was driven by the project potentially becoming part of redevelopment options for the council's leaking and mouldy civic block. A report to yesterday's meeting hinted that the carpark could become a component of the business case for a new downtown civic centre.

The council's off-street carpark in Harington St had earlier been mooted as a likely site for the new parking building.

Decisions on the future of the civic centre have delayed the start of the parking building for at least 18 months to two years.

The council, on advice from transport manager Martin Parkes and strategic planner Adele Hadfield, agreed to bring forward from 2022 the project to add an extra storey to the Elizabeth St building. Mr Parkes said adding two floors was not viable because the building would need substantial strengthening. Likewise, the Spring St parking building could not even take one extra floor without strengthening the foundations. Driving yesterday's $5 million decision was the continuing demand for new and well-located carparks. Mr Parkes said they had received requests for an additional 38 leased carparks over the last two months, on top of the 80 people already on the waiting list.

He said the availability of leased parking had an impact on the appeal of the city centre to the corporate sector, including staff moving into existing offices with limited or no carparking.

Councillor Catherine Stewart was the only opposing vote, arguing that the undersupply of on-site parking for the TrustPower development and planned University Campus in Durham St was the driver for the extra parking.

She said it was time that the council revisited the City Plan change that abolished minimum on-site parking requirements for new developments.

On the urging of councillor John Robson and Mayor Stuart Crosby, it was agreed the project would be subject to a full financial plan.