A compromise that would put a temporary halt to paid parking in Yarraville is likely to be put to the vote at the next Maribyrnong council meeting.
Cr Sarah Carter is working behind the scenes to build support for a motion to the December 15 meeting that could put a hold on parking fees until February.
Cr Carter told Star Weekly the violent attack at last Tuesday night’s meeting was likely to make compromise far more difficult for an already “deeply divided” council.
“It’s a hot mess and it’s a hot mess that the council has made,” she said.
“The implementation was haphazard. We have to acknowledge that it has been a mistake and that it’s hurting the local businesses. But there is a lot to recover from.”
Cr Michael Clarke’s motion at last week’s council meeting calling for removal of the parking meters was the catalyst for a violent confrontation.
He said businesses were already closing down and the council was losing tens of thousands of dollars due to occupancy rates barely above 30 per cent.
“Businesses are going to the wall,” he said. “We are destroying livelihoods, we are putting families at risk, we are talking about mortgages not being paid.
“They are going broke because of the decision of our council.”
Cr Martin Zakharov said evidence had already been gathered that predicted the downturn in trade.
“Sometimes you have to decide when you haven’t made the right choice,” he said.
But in arguing against removal of paid parking, councillors Grant Miles, Nam Quach and Cameron McDonald said it was important to wait until the council finished collecting new data before making a decision.
“There is information out there that needs to be collated,” Cr Quach said.
“The decisions that we need to make need to be based on informed data, information we can interrogate and qualify.”
Cr Miles said the situation was “very different” to the parking cameras he agitated against in Footscray.
“There were no complaints about them until they started doing damage,” he said.
“In this situation, we have had loud noise for 12 months before parking meters were even introduced. When you tell the world parking meters are the worst thing in the world, unfortunately some people listen.”
Cr McDonald said there were already alternatives to paying for parking.
“In the Yarraville village area we have 725 carparks in total, we have 95 metered spaces,” he said.
“They are free on Sunday and they are free on Monday. They’re $1.80 an hour, possibly the cheapest in metropolitan Melbourne.”
