Following the lead of Sydney and Melbourne Councils recently reducing the minimum parking requirements in both residential and commercial buildings, Wollongong City Council announced last week that they plan to reduce minimum parking requirements in the CBD by almost 20 per cent.
The Illawarra Mercury reported that the first instalment of a three-stage review of the 2009 Wollongong Development Control Plan (DCP) recommends that a raft of changes be made to the document to streamline overlapping and contrasting controls and remove those considered to be “too onerous” for developers.
Following input from State Government agencies, industry bodies and the community, it has been recommended the present ratio for parking – one car space per 30sqm of (ground floor) gross floor area and per 50sqm (of higher storeys) – be changed to a single figure of one vehicle space per 60sqm.
The report is still in the planning stages to the Wollongong City Council, but we feel that the council’s access and movement strategy for the city, which concludes that the more CBD workers use public transport the less need for provision of parking for new developments, is moving Wollongong in the right direction!