PARKING DEARTH A BLIGHT ON DONCASTER HILL
“Cars are everywhere. They take us to work, shop and play. They monopolise our streets and roadways and mould the landscape to their insistent demands” ….Graeme Davison
Pay and display parking at Tower St Bunnings site
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Pay Parking on Building Site
in Doncaster Road
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The shortage of off- street parking spaces on Doncaster Hill is proving to be a nightmare. Manningham council, who have limited parking spaces available in its own parking areas on weekdays after catering for 95% of its employees who drive cars, have not provided any extra off-street parking outside its own boundaries since development began 13 years ago, continue to claim there is adequate off-street parking throughout Doncaster Hill. The situation will only worsen as 320 off-street spaces
on building sites where a pay and display systems are employed, will disappear when development begins shortly. The severe shortage of parking spaces is pushing an increasing numbers of cars from the Doncaster Hill activity centre into side streets and onto privately owned areas.
My Chemist Car Park
Opposite Council Offices
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Boom gate to restrict unauthorised parking
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The car park adjacent to My Chemist Warehouse is privately owned to service shops in the strip shopping centre but is under pressure from car parking overspill from Manningham council offices.
One large office building in Frederick Street whose car park was being used for overspill, has recently erected a boom gate to restrict parking on its premises to staff and customers.
According to council documents, Westfield Doncaster currently has the lowest ratio of car parking and even after the construction of its proposed multi-deck car park it will still have less parking than other regional centres except for the expanded Eastland Shopping Centre which has a railway station nearby.
8, 514 Car Spaces at Ringwood CAD
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However according to the Ringwood parking study there are a total of 8,514 car spaces, 6,994 public off-street parking spaces, 504 spaces available on street and 1,016 parking bays at the Ringwood railway station car park.
11 Comments
I am not surprised there is a parking shortfall on the Hill. We attended many of the early consultation sessions at Manningham Council and I can remember the discussions we had on whether to build 6 parking stations on Doncaster Hill, costing at that time between $19.3 million and $21.1 million each containing five to eight levels plus basements and designed to offer 5100 parking spaces. They said there were two options – one that involved having the parking stations with no parking available in apartment developments, the other where apartment developers would make the provision for parking on site thereby eliminating the need for parking stations. It defies imagination to believe that one could ever sell new apartments without offering on-site parking…but that is what we were told.
Great article by Doris. Intelligent responses. Why aren’t we represented by intelligent councillors?
The people that write on these pages are passionate about community.
Too busy to be a councillor? $24,000 plus $9,000 for expenses etc. and maybe a sponsored trip to Asia. All tax Free!
Is it harder to sit frustrated than go to 11 meetings per year. The incumbents will tell you that they work hard. Rubbish! If you are committed and intelligent you would earn your money. Manningham hasn’t had intelligent ,committed councillors for years.
How do you think the council would react if we put in plans for a multi-storey car park in place of our home?
Or may a single penthouse, on top of a multi level excavated car park – a business to pay for your penthouse..
“Find a need and fill it” I have seen properties close to shopping centres that have concreted their front gardens for this very purpose. Imagine 5 cars, all day parking $6, $210 cash per week not bad money for a retiree. You’ve got me thinking but I have to talk to my wife first.
Hawky
Parking stations would have solved the short fall of parking on Doncaster Hill but apparently there were difficulties with finding operators and and the lack of suitable sites so it was decided instead to reduce car use by improving public transport, the promotion of walking and cycling and the discouragement of car ownership by reminding owners of the real cost of owning a car.
I doubt apartment developers would have risked not providing at least baseline parking (one space per apartment) irrespective of the amount of parking spaces available in parking stations. They would have been okay for visitor parking but not for tenants who would want to park where they live and not have to walk blocks away to park or retrieve their vehicles. Besides how could council acquire land, within the perimeter of the activity centre for the purpose of a parking station, that had already been zoned for the more profitable high rise apartment developments?
The proposition that car ownership could be discouraged by reminding people of the real cost of running a car is even more fanciful today. Not only are cars more affordable than ever before, they are more economical to run, and safety items that were once expensive extras are now standard inclusions. The latest measure by the planning authority, to discourage car ownership in and around activity centres, is to maintain a shortage of car parking opportunities ….Good luck!
You forgot to mention the Shoppingtown Hotel land, the largest area earmarked for future development in the Doncaster Hill building plan, which has more than half its five level car park being used by non-customers every day. That is a significant number of cars that would have to seek parking elsewhere if and when the site is developed.
Parking will only be part of the problem. The main concern is that traffic generated by vehicles accessing or departing the Doncaster Hill activity centre will seriously impede traffic flow on Tram/Williamsons Road and Doncaster Road, the two major arterial routes which bisect the centre. There are no alternative roads available to clear traffic. The steep narrow side streets go nowhere and are either looped back to these two main roads or become dead ends.
It is hard to fathom why Box Hill wasn’t chosen before Doncaster Hill as the area most suitable, it has all the facilities essential for an activity centre, including three modes of transport, a world class hospital and Tafe college etc. and especially given it has a superior wide road network which allows for efficient traffic dispersion in all directions.
It might be possible to install entry and exit ramps where Tram Road crosses the freeway to cater for city traffic to help ease congestion in Doncaster Road.
The beauty of Whitehorse Road is its 60 metres wide at Box Hill shopping centre, wide enough to include a service roads both sides if required, compared to zero options in Doncaster Road which is only 30 metres wide where it runs through Doncaster Hill.
Waymouth
Who is Graeme Davison? 130,000 people live in Manningham and choose to live here knowing that there will never be Train or Trams near their door.
Rather than make Iron horses top priority fluent car travel is essential.
Manningham has been a great place to drive a car.
Our dopey Councillors are easily led by irrelevant minority groups!