Council continues to monitor parking changes in Southbank Village

The City of Melbourne says it will continue to investigate further changes to new parking arrangements in Southbank Village following several rounds of community consultation. 

In August last year, Southbank News reported on how some of the changes implemented by the council following the adoption of its new parking and kerbside management plan in May 2023 hadn’t been well received among many locals. 

The council’s plan was created to better manage parking supply and demand for kerbside space, with new parking signs, meters, line markings and other assets having been rolled out across the city to respond to local conditions. 

Since the plan was originally implemented, Southbank has seen various parking conditions amended across the suburb.

In Southbank Village, bordered by St Kilda Rd, and Grant, Sturt and Dorcas streets, the biggest shift saw many all-day spaces initially reduced to three-hour zones between 7am and 10pm, while parking was made no longer free on weekends. 

An independent survey of 452 residents from around 25 apartment complexes conducted by Coventry Garden owners’ corporation in November last year concluded that the changes were “unwelcoming” and “severely impacting on residents”. 

The former owner of 8 Miles café, which has since closed, told Southbank News in August that the decision to replace the three 15-minute parking spaces out the front of his shop with three-hour spaces had resulted in lost earnings. 

A copy of the survey was presented to the council as part of its latest round of consultation late last year, which has since resulted in several changes being implemented in January. According to the council, these include: 

• Increasing time limits from two to three hours in the northern section of Southbank.
• No restrictions after 9pm, allowing people to park at 6pm and stay all night.
• An off-peak rate after 4pm weekdays, meaning people pay only $2p/h after 4pm on weekdays and on weekends.
• More untimed meter parking spaces added to the southern part of Southbank. 

While the council said further changes “would continue to be investigated”, many residents are still unhappy about the new measures despite the recent updates.

A recent survey conducted in response to January’s changes, seen by Southbank News, has overwhelmingly stressed that the three-hour limitations in various locations continue to present barriers to residents welcoming friends and family. 

The survey called for a return to previous restrictions, claiming that parking for guests would be “better facilitated by more friendly parking restrictions, no timed restriction after 6pm [and] no time restriction on weekends.”

Lord Mayor Nick Reece said the council’s parking team would continue to monitor these changes over the coming months, with the next scheduled review set for mid-2025.

“These changes are not set-and-forget – that’s why we adjusted some of Southbank’s parking conditions in January following community feedback,” Cr Reece said. 

We’ve been working to make parking in our neighbourhoods simpler, fairer and more reliable.

“As no two neighbourhoods are the same, we want to ensure our parking conditions balance the needs of residents, businesses and visitors.”

But Coventry Gardens owner David Ritchie said while some of the council’s recent changes had been welcomed, he said more needed to be done to improve access for friends and family of residents, who he said, “were ratepayers, not customers”. 

“It’s good that the council has accommodated the 9pm changes, but it hasn’t facilitated anything for family and friends, nor any arrangements with off-street parking operators which aren’t open on the weekends,” Mr Ritchie said. 

“While the council’s intention to improve equity and accessibility with its parking arrangements is understandable, if anything, many of its current changes are resulting in an underutilisation of car parks across the neighbourhood.”

According to the council, there are around 2800 on-street parking spaces within Southbank, which the council manages, and more than 26,000 residents and 45,000 workers.

It says changes to parking controls across Southbank were made to address high occupancy rates and the need to make parking spaces available more often – providing more opportunities for people to find a park when they need it.

Residents recently surveyed also suggested that the council could provide up to two free parking permits for residents in line with other municipalities to help alleviate some of the pressures of the new parking arrangements. 

For residents who have either no or only one off-street parking space available, the City of Melbourne currently charges $52 for a first permit, and $142 for a second with limited concessions available.   

The council said that further changes would continue to be investigated and that parking permits remained available for eligible Southbank properties under its residential parking permit scheme. 

However, it said that expanding eligibility under this scheme couldn’t be accommodated due to the limited supply of on-street parking. The council didn’t comment on whether it was open to providing free permits to residents. •