However, plans have been suspended after local business owners expressed strong reservations.
Paid parking, an attempt by the City of Johannesburg to address ubiquitous issues of road congestion, maintenance, and informal car guards, has met with controversy and outraged protest as its first stages have rolled out in suburbs such as Parkhurst. In Norwood, following a meeting between city officials, including Ward 73 Councillor Marcelle Ravid, and Ace Parking representatives, the scheme’s latest stage has been put on hold in favour of a wider-scale rehabilitation and development of the Grant Avenue business district.
Ravid put the brakes on the scheme after business owners responded with vehement protests to the proposed introduction of paid parking as part of a planned intervention to address long-term problems, including vagrancy, informal trading, and unregulated, often troublesome, informal car guards, on the Grant Avenue strip. The introduction of viable paid parking would necessitate management of the havoc caused by informal taxi ranks along Grant Avenue and William Road, improved accommodation for the informal traders currently occupying the existing William Road parking lot, and rezoning of the parking lot itself for development as public parking.
According to Ravid, the scheme has a number of positive advantages over similar projects elsewhere in Johannesburg, from consultation with the public and regulation of car guards, to the provision of 20-30 minutes’ free parking. Nevertheless, a number of local business owners suggested that paid parking would benefit neither shoppers nor businesses, and argued that the scheme will not resolve issues with informal traders and vagrants.
In response, Ravid has undertaken to meet with stakeholders, and revive attempts to set up a Business Improvement District on Grant Avenue, beginning with the creation of a Precinct Plan for the strip, which is home to a variety of business interests, from restaurants to book stores.
“I think we need to take a step back and look at Grant Avenue holistically again,” she said.
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