Katoomba Charrette Outcomes Report - Blue Mountains City Council

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Katoomba Charrette Report & Town Centre Strategy 8.7.2 Lurline Street Improvements Traffic needs to be slowed along Lurline Street, and pedestrian amenity and safety improved. To do this, the eastern side of Lurline Street should be improved by means of constructing a footpath along that side (there is one already on the western side), plus planting of trees in the eastern parallel parking lane of the street to slow the traffic and improve amenity. While for now, there may be less demand for parking in Lurline Street than Parke Street, due to the grade to reach the Town Centre and limited access through private properties, the street trees in the parking lane will themselves act to slow the south-bound traffic in particular. Action 8.7.2 - Construct proposed Lurline Street improvements. 8.8 Car Parking Improvements 8.8.1 The Car Parking Context And Challenges for the Top End of Town The Top of Town especially suffers from several inter-related car parking problems. The Top End of Town is generally under-parked, compared to the lower end of the Town Centre. Present parking requirements are fairly onerous. For example, to change the use within an existing historic building may require new additional on-site parking, or else contributions to off-site parking fees at $15,000 per required space (the approximate cost of a parking space in a multi-deck parking structure). Required parking ratios are applied presently, regardless of the circumstance of the property involved, in terms of its size or its historic importance. And there are no known significant car parking sites right in the Top of Town, to which such off-site parking fees could be applied through a Council purchase and car park development initiative, where they would actually do much good for the Top of Town. Relatively ample parking north of the railway is hard to reach, despite its proximity to the Top of Town, because of the ‘barrier effect’ of the railway itself. The Top of Town is generally made up of small and historic parcels, being forced to comply with the above parking requirements. This had made for a ‘Catch 22’ for improvements to many existing buildings. We have a ‘Catch 22’ where more car parking is needed, but, at the same time, parking exemptions are needed for businesses in the Top of Town, because they cannot gain on-site parking capacity due to generally small and cramped premises! 8.8.2 Proposed Strategies for Car Parking in the Top of Town The Charrette proposed to accept the nearby parking shortage and instead to make the area more attractive, so customers would be more willing to park in car parks slightly further away and still walk to the Top of Town. Reduced On-Site Parking Requirements Key buildings like the Savoy should be encouraged to proceed with minimal or zero on-site parking requirements, as peak parking demand for the Savoy would not likely coincide with parking demands for most of the rest of the existing parking capacity in the Top of Town. Cafes and restaurants should be encouraged to operate without parking requirements, again 62
Katoomba Charrette Report & Town Centre Strategy because of their evening peak parking demands, and because car parkers using the cafes in the daytime would hopefully be parking also to patronise other uses at the same time (thereby increasing parking efficiency by reducing single-destination parking demand). Services that are oriented to goods and services suited for pedestrians should be encouraged in the Top of Town, while discouraging more car-dependent uses where people need to carry large items to cars, such as building supply stores or mattress shops. Adaptive re-use of an existing building, including to a different use, should attract no additional parking contribution requirements if the gross floor area is not increased through such improvements. The Charrette recommended that, where proposed new uses in the Top End of Town will generate parking demands, the availability of existing parking to serve such new parking demands should be assessed and should count for such requirements, including all publicly available parking within a distance of 400 metres of the subject site. Off-peak considerations should be considered in calculating such parking capacities. In other parts of town nearby, decisions about car parking requirements should be made on a site-by-site and proposal-by-proposal basis, with flexibility particularly being used to encourage those uses that will help catalyse visitor uses (ie the Arts), lead to the rehabilitation of historic buildings and their facades, or contribute to the revitalisation of the Town Centre. Institutionalise Shared Parking Shared parking of all existing parking in the Top of Town should be shared and institutionalised by the Council. Action 8.8.2A - Council should review its parking requirements, especially for the Top of Town, as per the above Charrette recommendations. Action 8.8.2B - Increase parking capacity for the Top End of Town by means of shared or public parking facilities nearby (especially the Old TAFE Site, Goldsmiths and the SRA Depot on week-ends in particular when there is less demand for train commuter parking), and by means of improving pedestrian access between those facilities and Top End of Town businesses. 8.8.3 Commuter Car Parking at the Station Additional parking is envisaged to be located on the street in Goldsmith Place, and off-street commuter parking is proposed as part of any redevelopment of the State Rail Authority Depot site. Additional parking in this location will service both commuters, especially during the weekdays, as well as users of the railway precinct and the Top of Town on the week-ends and evenings, especially when the proposed at-grade electronic pedestrian crossing of the railway is in place (see Section 8.3.1). 63
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