'Gravel pit' car park operators defying call to shut down in central Christchurch

Tuesday, 13 July 2021

Cr Jake McLellan describes some of the city’s temporary car parks as “gravel pits”. (File photo)

Fifteen temporary car parks in central Christchurch are defying a city council order to stop operating because they do not have the appropriate consent.

The Christchurch City Council wrote to 93 car park owners in December warning them t o either cease their operations or apply for a resource consent. The owners were given until the end of April to comply. A new consent would cost at least $4000.

Forty-six car parks had ceased activity since the council wrote to them, the council's head of regulatory compliance, Tracey Weston, said. Fourteen only stopped after being served a follow-up notice from the council.

Another 32 car park owners had applied for the required consent. The council had said these car parks could continue operating while the consents were processed.

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Weston said 15 car parks continued to operate without consent, defying a notice from the council directing them to stop immediately.

“The council is continuing to work with property owners who have received an abatement notice and demonstrated an intent to comply.”

This map, from January 2020, shows vacant land within Christchurch’s central city. The grey patches show temporary car parks.

It was not clear how many sites had demonstrated this intent.

Weston said all sites were being dealt with on a case-by-case basis because of differing circumstances.

The council’s next step would be issuing a fine, she said. The council then had the option of action in the Environment Court “should non-compliance continue”.

There was no timeframe for escalating the council's enforcement response, Weston said.

A spokeswoman for Wilson Parking, one of the city’s prominent car park operators, said it was not operating any of the 15 car parks that had defied abatement notices.

“Where Wilson Parking has received abatement notices, we have closed the car parks,” she said.

Wilson Parking made several applications for the appropriate consents following the first round of warning letters.

The spokeswoman said none of those had been declined.

McLellan says losing “a few gravel pits” is not going to be bad for Christchurch.

Removing central city car parks had not proved popular with some in the business community.

Annabel Turley, owner of Unichem pharmacy on Cashel St and chairwoman of the Central City Business Association, previously said she did not support removing car parks as she feared doing so would give people an excuse not to come into the city.

Ernest Duval, who operates about five central city car parks, said they served the city by providing convenient car parking to workers.

He wished the council had taken a more collaborative approach to dealing with car parks that did not have consent, he said.

“That wasn’t the case, they basically pointed the gun at people and started pulling the trigger.

“It’s incredibly short-sighted that they can’t relax the rule and allow these owners to use their sites productively for a few more years until conditions improve,” he said, citing the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and delayed anchor projects.

Central city councillor Jake McLellan said losing “a few gravel pits” was not going to be bad for the city, given it had seven purpose-built parking buildings.

“We’re not talking about a lot of car parking, and we’re not talking about anything that’s particularly loved by the people of Christchurch.”

He expected council staff do whatever was necessary to make sure car parks were compliant.

“We’ve got a lot of car parks that are cleaning up their act … and we’ve got a few bad eggs that our staff will need to get onto,” he said.

The council’s crackdown was part of its wider “vacant sites programme”, which aimed to spur on development of vacant central city land.

In January 2020, there was nearly 70 hectares of vacant land in central Christchurch.