“Since the decision to increase parking infringement fees was made by central Government, our compliance officers have noticed some pushback from members of the public, including several abusive incidents,” Shaw said.
There were only a small number of negative interactions overall, he said, but the council wanted to emphasise that abusive and threatening behaviour was not acceptable.
The council’s preference was for voluntary compliance, Shaw said.
“Ideally, there would be no revenue from parking infringements because everyone would comply with the parking rules.”
After the October change, the minimum fine for overstaying rose from $12 to $20.
At the upper end, those who overstayed by more than six hours began paying $97 instead of $57.
The increase was reflected in figures provided by the council that showed more than $1.14 million was collected in fees from October 2024 to June 2025, compared with just over $650,000 for the same period a year earlier.
The number of infringements issued by the council rose from 12,830 to 16,504 over the same timeframe.
A contributing factor to the difference was the council not issuing infringements for those who failed to activate kiosks for 30 minutes of free parking between February 2024 and June 2024 while it addressed “challenges” with its bylaw.
That year, a company successfully challenged a $40 fine because of a loophole.
The Government introduced an inflation-based increase to parking fees to improve compliance.
“Parking infringement fees have not been updated in two decades, making councils’ role in managing public parking increasingly difficult,” Local Government Minister Simeon Brown said at the time.
– RNZ
