By Matt O'Sullivan
Car share vehicles should be let off paying a $2350 annual tax on car parks in Sydney's busiest areas such as the central business district, it has been argued in submissions to a review into the levy.
The levy has also been a bone of contention for small businesses after it was expanded to include commercial and office car parks in areas such as the inner-city suburb of Pyrmont seven years ago. It has also hit some apartment owners who own spots in nearby commercial car park buildings.
First introduced almost 25 years ago, the levy on a car park in Sydney's CBD and North Sydney now amounts to $2350 a year. So-called category-two areas Bondi Junction, Chatswood, Parramatta and St Leonards have a lower annual rate of $850 per space.
The NSW government has a review under way into the levy on off-street commercial and office parking spaces, the aim of which has been to help fund public transport and reduce road congestion by encouraging people to ditch their cars.
The levy on car parks in Sydney's CBD amounts to $2350 a year.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Committee for Sydney chief executive Tim Williams said imposing the levy on car-share vehicles had the paradoxical effect of discouraging the take up of something that directly reduced congestion.
"Removing the [parking space levy] on the car share vehicles will help drive their expansion and help reduce congestion," he said in a submission.
Like the City of Sydney Council, the committee supports the overall intention of the levy, arguing it has helped discourage people from driving into the busiest parts of the city.
The council advocates exempting car sharing and funnelling money raised by the levy into infrastructure to encourage more people to walk, cycle or take rail services.
But small business owners at the Cooperage and Tablet House heritage buildings at Pyrmont's Jacksons Landing say the decision in 2009 to expand the area covered by the levy to include the entire harbour foreshore had a "detrimental effect" on them.
"We do not have the ability to recoup the cost of the [levy] – unlike the Fish Markets, Star City, shopping centres ... who can charge visitors for parking," they said.
Some 220 apartment owners in Pyrmont who own bays in a nearby car park building have also described the levy as "arbitrary and discriminatory".
The car parks that many of the owners bought for $56,000 each in the Harris Street Car Park in 2005 were now worth as little as $30,000.
In some of the strongest comments, the Property Council of Australia urged the government to abolish the levy, claiming it was an "unjustifiable tax on business and jobs" and that there was little evidence it was reducing congestion.
Parking Australia, the peak body for the industry, said the levy was outdated and failed to account for new technology that could allow commercial parking to become a potential solution to congestion.
The lobby group said all car users should be targeted by the levy if its aim was to reduce congestion, "not just parking spaces for a subset ot car users".
The government will decide in the next few months whether it will make any changes to the parking levy.