Councillors agreed to cap spending on a project to create car parks to replace those lost to the GovHub development.
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State funds of $2 million for 1000 car parking spaces had already been stretched by existing projects. The council agenda revealed that $1,272,000 had already been spent on creating 570 car parking spaces so far.
These included the official cost for the delayed Creswick Road Car Park which came to a total of $850,000 and created 280 spaces. There was $412,000 spent for the Eastern Oval Car Park on Scott Parade, where there were 176 off street places created.
As well as those, there were also 114 car parks formalised with road markings on the service road running parallel to Creswick Road.
Council officer reports described a fraught, informal parking system currently in use in much of the Soldiers Hill precinct, which they proposed "formalising" for the remaining 430 spaces.
The CEO Janet Dore confirmed that formalising (in other words, clearly delineating) a portion of the 1000 car parks complied with the scope of the project.
One option was to spend $750,000 of council's own money to make the work longer-term, and require less maintenance.
However, council decided unanimously against that option and opted for less expensive work that would remain within the remaining of $728,000 of the original $2m state funding.
Work on the GovHub began in January 2019 and is scheduled to be completed early next year.
IN OTHER NEWS
There will be around 220 car parking spaces at the new site - a reduction of around 50 from previously - which is designed to house offices for up to 1000 state government employees, including around 600 new jobs transferred from Melbourne.
A separate state election promise by the Andrews government committed $14 million for 1000 new free car parks in the city. There is not yet any firm plans or timeline for those car parks.
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