Wadestown residents overwhelmingly rejected revised proposals from the Wellington City Council that would fundamentally change the character of the suburb by installing a restrictive parking management plan and cycle lane.

Around 200 residents gathered at St Lukes Hall in Wadestown on 9 September to voice their concerns to councillors Diane Calvert, Ray Chung, Sarah Free and Ben McNulty – all members of the Council Regulatory Committee. Other committee members were invited, but failed to show up.

The meeting was hosted by Wadestown Residents Association with support from Wadestown Voices, whose representative Jeremy Verity gave a brief presentation.

“The overwhelming message that came from the meeting was that the council needed to completely stop its current proposals on cycle lanes and parking management for Wadestown, consult meaningfully with Wadestown residents and the association, and ultimately start again,” Jeremy says.

“There were very convincing arguments that the research used by the Council to advance it’s proposals was extremely shonky and biased with serious shortcomings. Some residents are very passionate about this issue and rightfully so.”

Key resolutions for the meeting were:

• There is majority opposition to the cycle way proposal,
• The council has over-stated concerns regarding access by emergency vehicles,
• The current rules for no stopping lines should remain as they are and not be adjusted,
• In general, the Wadestown Connections Proposal should be reduced to just addressing very few localised parking hotspots, with council consulting with community on those streets.

Wadestown Voices gave a short presentation identifying that the parking surveys for the council’s proposed parking management plan was left off the consultation documents provided online on the council’s Wadestown Connections webpage. The parking surveys were conducted for the Council by the consultant firm Abley. Wadestown was divided in to 3 areas, East, Central and West.

Abley made the following conclusion for east and central Wadestown...

“Overall, the majority of the precinct was below the 85% ideal occupancy threshold”

and in West Wadestown…. “overall occupancy of the precinct is less than 85% throughout all survey time periods”

“The Abley data presented suggests that an extensive parking management plan was a huge over reach and a solution to a problem that did not exist, and the council had no evidence to propose the changes in the Parking Management Plan,” Jeremy says.

Wadestown Voices was of the opinion that the council was too focused on their “Te Atakura - First to Zero 2019” blueprint for making Wellington City a zero-carbon capital (net zero emissions) by 2050, and another agenda of the council which is the National Policy Statement for Urban Development.(NPS-UD). Policy 11 of the NPS-UD prevents local authorities from setting minimum car parking rate. (eg discouraging car ownership) Both documents are cited in the council Parking Management Plan.

Wadestown Voices suggested the council needs to take into consideration that people need cars to live their lives.

Wadestown Voices also questioned the application of the no stopping line rules. Currently the council has a rule that yellow lines can be put on one side of a street if the width curb to curb is less than or equal to 6m. The proposed Parking Management Plan has included no stopping lines on sections of many streets with widths 6m or greater, such as Hanover and Barnard Sts, which is in controversy with the current 6m rule, and will remove many parks from those streets.

Councillor Ben McNulty is proposing a new rule that no stopping lines be applied to streets that are 6.9m or less in width. This has the potential to remove many more parks from the suburb of Wadestown.

The Regulatory Committee will be voting on the Wadestown Connections Proposal on the 11th Sept. The Regulatory Committee is non-elected and selected by Tory Whanau. Members include…. Chair Councillor Sarah Free (Independent), Deputy Chair Councillor Ben McNulty (Labour), Members Mayor Tory Whanau (Green), Councillor Geordie Rogers (Green), Pouiwi Liz Kelly (non elected Iwi), Councillor Nureddin Abdurahman (Labour), Councillor Ray Chung (Independent) Councillor Diane Calvert (Independent)

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