Million dollar repairs to New Plymouth parking lot with start approval

Simon O’Connor/Staff

The downtown New Plymouth car park on Powderham Street was closed indefinitely in late 2020 due to earthquake hazards.

Payers will pay nearly $5 million to enhance this downtown New Plymouth earthquake-prone, multi-storey car park.

New Plymouth County Council (NPDC) narrowly approved spending when they met on Tuesday to continue the discussion on spending more than twice what was previously recommended.

The price hike will raise its seismic rating to 34 percent of the new building standard before determining its long-term future through the implementation of the Ngamoto City Center strategy.

The 268-space car park was closed in December 2020 when the NPDC deemed the building earthquake-prone after a seismic assessment showed it to have a low National Building Standard rating.

Read more: * Earthquake-prone Taranaki Mall sold to Wellington developer * No parties in downtown New Plymouth * New Plymouth taxpayers can pay nearly $2 million to the Catholic Church to rent board land for $1 a year since 1984

Simon O’Connor/Stuff

New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdum led the shipment to complete reinforcement work. (file image)

Mayor Neil Holdum, who previously led the call for more powerful and costly consolidation work, was at the forefront of the debate on Tuesday, urging council members to send a message to the community that they are not afraid to make tough decisions.

He believed that raising the level of the car park to a higher level would encourage more growth and investment in the city, revealing that the council had been approached by developers who were looking for a guarantee about the future of the car park.

“Let’s just get started and get it done,” he urged.

However, his enthusiasm for a higher degree of work was met with an attempt by several councilors.

Murray Chung, backed by Dinnie Moeahu, was upset that a major real estate developer had walked away from any future downtown business because the council had no option to purchase a share of the parking lot.

“He spat out the doll and left,” Chong said. “This is a scary people.”

Then Chancellor Amanda Clinton-Goddess put forward a motion to block any decision being made after arguing it was “too big” for the future of the CBD to decide the fate of the parking lot at this time.

Simon O’Connor/Staff

Chancellor Amanda Clinton-Goddess tried to have a resolution on the table for now. (file image)

Motion lost narrowly.

Time was then spent debating whether or not they were a progressive council before Councilman Stacey Hitchcock stood up to defend the rights of the city’s commercial taxpayers.

She said there was no way they could confront the price payers and tell them they had taken the parking away while they were looking to develop a downtown strategy.

She was also critical of any notion that the needs of one developer would be presented to all business owners in the city.

Simon O’Connor/Stuff

Chancellor Annika Carlsson has come up with ideas other than spending money in a downtown car park. (file image)

Chancellor Annika Karlsson also entered the debate, proposing the use of the racetrack as a parking lot with buses or coaches taking shoppers into town.

In the end, Holdum gave one last impassioned plea to pass the upgrade work, citing Tauranga City Council’s poor handling of parking to the deterioration of the central business district.

Then nine votes were passed to five.

The work is expected to take anywhere from 18 months to two years to complete, but it depends on supply and availability of manpower.

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