Plan to sell car park

‘Recent valuations undertaken for the purposes of fair value reporting indicate that the site will be worth significantly more than the threshold value, but as the site may be subject to tender process or auction, it wouldn’t be prudent at this stage to reveal the exact value received,’ a staff report said at last month’s meeting.

Councillors accepted the business plan and, in a separate decision, allocated $9.1 million from the 2013 sale of the former works depot on Nailsworth Street, to reduce debt and spend on beach facilities and parks in the next 10 years.

The sales have gained urgency because of the pending announcement of local government mergers, proposed to be finished mid-2015.

During council’s consultation about selling the car park, three submissions were from developers and investment companies interested in the site.

The report said selling of the car park could finance improvements to the adjacent town centre and provide replacement bays. It said any link between parking shortages and fewer shoppers in the town centre, before a 48-bay car park opened at the east end of Station Street late last year, were caused by Cottesloe Central shopping centre staff seeking new places for their cars, shoppers moving to the Claremont Quarter and commuters being stopped from parking at train stations.

The report said the council’s electronic parking monitors showed the car park to be sold was 70 per cent occupied by 9am weekdays, likely by shop staff and commuters, leaving no bays for shoppers, but the new car park was ‘rarely’ half-used in the day.

Councillors agreed half the money from the car park’s sale would be used for improvements in the town centre, and a toilet would be built nearby for train passengers.