Business offers levy money for parking Author: By ANITA BEAUMONT Date: 09/02/2007 Publication: Newcastle Herald
THE Hamilton Business District Committee hopes a multi-level parking station in the suburb will solve its parking problems and allow the area to grow and develop. The committee wants to help Newcastle City Council to establish the parking station near the corner of Beaumont and Cleary streets behind the Kent Hotel by offering to raise money towards construction through a levy on business owners. Committee vice-president and business owner Lindsay Parker said the station would give district workers a place to park other than in front of residents' houses or in side streets. Mr Parker said the parking problem topped the list of all surveys the committee had carried out on Hamilton. "This multi-level car park would be a really nice fix and boost our commercial centre as well," he said. The Hamilton business community contributed money in the 1990s for footpath paving in Beaumont Street through a special levy and Mr Parker would like to see that happen again so the suburb could get its parking station sooner rather than later. "I know the council's stretched for money at the moment, but we're prepared to do our bit because it's going to benefit us," he said. "The main street committee have a levy on the landlords on the street which gives us the money to pay back the council." Committee chairman George Yanis said Hamilton had always been a thriving metropolitan suburb, "yet one of its major impediments to growth and development within this established business hub is the lack of parking".