Lane Cove Council to Discuss Early Bird Parking Scheme

The Lane Cove Council October Meeting will be held on Monday 21 October 2019.  One of the agenda items is early bird parking in The Canopy (aka the Rosenthal Avenue Car Park Redevelopment).

The Canopy is due for completion in mid 2020.  Like the Little Street Car park building, the car parking levels will be finished prior to completion of The Canopy (see below).

Little Street Car Park Building Under Construction – Car Parking Levels Open

Lane Cove Council has indicated the car park will be ready for use in early December 2019. There will be 500 car parking spaces over four levels for public car parking.  Presumably based on data from Lane Cove Council’s other car parking stations, Council expects the car park will not run at full capacity during the weekday.

Lane Cove Council is proposing to allocate 140 car spaces on the car park’s lowest level for business parking (maximum 50 permits) seven days a week and early bird all day parking on weekdays for public use.

Allocating business car parking permits has been standard practice in Lane Cove. The old Rosenthal car park had 179 car spaces and a business parking scheme was in place. Business owners were able to park in any available 3-hour car space all day, 7 days per week. The cost of this business parking permit was $1,800 per annum.

When the Rosenthal car park was closed, a temporary business permit car parking area was established in the Coles Car Park Open area in Sera Street. Twenty-four free business parking spaces were provided for use during The Canopy construction period.  This temporary business parking scheme will finish in December 2019.

Early Bird Parking Scheme Details

An early bird weekday parking service will cost $7.50 per day. If a car enters the car park prior to 9:30 am and leaves after 4:00 pm.  The car must be parked on the car park’s lowest level. This rate has been determined based on a driver using the car park every weekday for 48 weeks a year (4 weeks annual leave). This total cost is $1,800. As a comparative, The Concourse at Chatswood runs Early Bird Parking where cars must enter between 6 am -10 am and exit between 3 pm -7 pm, Monday to Friday.

The early bird parking scheme may have the added advantage of removing commuter parking from residential streets surrounding the Lane Cove village.

Business Permit Parking

It’s proposed to reintroduce a business parking permit scheme for 50 local business owners. This allows a business unlimited and unrestricted use of the lowest car park level seven days a week.  The yearly rate will be $1800.

Early Bird Parking only on Lowest Level

Under both the Business Parking Permit Scheme and casual Early Bird Scheme, there is no guarantee of a space. Once the lowest level is full (approx. 140 cars) and a driver parks on another level they will pay the standard parking rates that apply in all Lane Cove Council undercover car parks.

The car park management system to be installed in The Canopy car park has the ability to impose differential parking rates on each level combined with entry and exit times.

What do you think?  Would you pay for early bird parking in Lane Cove?

Update

Lane Cove Council resolved at their October Meeting to trial Early Bird/Commuter Parking for six months and then provide a report on its progress.  If the scheme is successful it will continue.

Many ITC followers wanted to know why Little Street Carpark is not being used for commuter/early bird parking.  This makes more sense as it is closer to the Lane Cove Bus interchange.  There used to be commuter parking in Birdwood Avenue (10 hour parking).

Lane Cove Council’s General Manger stated that he is of the view that commuters will not use the early bird parking and in fact it will be used mostly by Coles/ALDI staff.  This begs the question, why not just acknowledge that the early bird parking scheme is really a scheme to enable staff working in the Canopy to access cheap parking?  Of course any person who works in Lane Cove can take advantage of the cheaper parking but they will need to ensure they access the parking early as there will only be limited early bird parking spaces.

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