During a firey debate over how the council funds new car parks, councillor Ash Brown said the council needed to shore up long-term revenue for car parking by introducing an extra charge for residential and business ratepayers.

“If you own a house in north Orange and you want to shop anywhere in Orange you should pay a small levy for that, not just have businesses paying,” he said.

“A model that might work in the future is a small levy for each house and maybe double for businesses.

“Let’s call it $100 for households per year and $200 for businesses.”

Cr Brown said it was a waste of time for the council to rely on revenue from parking contributions when the use of CBD buildings was changed.

But deputy mayor Cr Jeff Whitton said there were already policies in place to collect contributions from developers to go towards new car parks.

Cr Brown said many residents were so frustrated with the parking shortage they would prefer to pay an extra $100 a year to create more car parking for the city, but admitted his idea was unlikely to be popular initially.

“I’ve got a lot of customers who whinge about car parking every week,” he said.

“We need to look at car parks now.”

Mayor John Davis said car parking would be the biggest problem in Orange for the next five to 10 years.

“Council needs a genuine attempt to fix parking,” he said.

“Paid parking might happen in our lifetime in Orange, but certainly not in the next three to five years.”

Cr Glenn Taylor agreed.

“Parking will literally choke this city in the coming years,” he said.

“Somewhere along the line the shortfall has got to be made up.”

He said the council would have to look at proposals for multi-storey parking and paid parking.

Cr Neil Jones said the council would have to build its own multistorey car park if the shopping centre earmarked for the Anson Street car park near Woolworths did not go ahead.

Cr Kevin Duffy said the CBD was being choked by cars driven to Orange from other areas.

“You have 5000 to 6000 vehicles coming into the city each week that don’t even contribute to car parking,” he said.

General manager Garry Styles acknowledged councillors could again change the policy after a forum into parking planned for the new year.

“It sounds like deja-vu to me many times over. When we have the forum you can have another crack at the policy,” he said.

If the council wanted to introduce an extra car park levy for ratepayers it would need to apply to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) for a special rate variation and consult with the community.

clare.colley@fairfaxmedia.com.au