Councillors are divided as Shoalhaven City Council staff continue to work on a proposal to introduce paid parking at Hyams Beach.
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At the strategy and assets meeting on Tuesday, March 10 while taking note of the paid parking report for Hyams Beach, Councillor Bob Proudfoot also asked council to write a draft policy around paid parking across the Shoalhaven.
The Hyams Beach report suggests after the first year of operation, council expects to receive $600,000 a year in profit from paid parking meters.
"An assumed price of $3 per hour with a cap of $15 per day was used as it is similar to paid parking prices in the surrounding Local Government Areas," the report said.
A Shoalhaven City Council conducted a survey on paid parking at Hyams Beach. Of the 95 respondents, 40 per cent hated it or didn't like it, 9 per cent didn't have a strong opinion, 50 per cent were in favour and one per cent was unaccounted for.
Councillor Bob Proudfoot said from his experience as Wollongong City Council councillor, he would like to see council expand paid parking in the future.
"The experience up there in Wollongong is there's far greater turnover of parking, far greater benefit for shopkeepers," Cr Proudfoot said.
"At some stage, with the way the city is growing, it's just a bit unreasonable for people to park in an area and have that area for an extended period of time."
Fellow Shoalhaven Independents Crs Greg Watson and Mitchell Pakes were strongly opposed to the idea and fearful of opening the floodgates.
"If you adopt this policy... these things will be like a disease, they'll spread out throughout the whole city," Cr Watson said.
"You can just see them now - all the way along Junction Street, all the way up Kinghorne street, in Huskisson, in Ulladulla, all over the place.
"For goodness sake, vote this down."
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Cr Pakes said while it might solve a problem for Hyams Beach it was "just another cash grab for a community who is already strapped of cash".
"This is not a new position for me. I've made it quite clear to the Hyams Beach community that I support all their options to assist with the traffic management in their village, except paid parking," he said.
Cr Nina Digiglio said the money gained from paid parking would support badly-needed infrastructure at Hyams Beach.
"I think to cloud other areas with the Hyams beach motion is not what this motion is about," she said.
Before a paid parking scheme is installed council must get approval from Transport NSW.
For: Crs Proudfoot, Levett, Digiglio, Findley, Wells, Stephen Dunshea
Against: Crs Watson, Pakes, Gash, White
Absent: Kitchener, Gartner, Guile