Residents win battle for car parking
Fairfield Advance, Wed, 30 May 07

CABRAMATTA residents were almost robbed of their fair share of car park funding at the Fairfield Council meeting last week.

Council staff had recommended scrapping the Section 94 Developer Contributions Plan 1999, with the exception of the car parking components for Canley Heights and Fairfield until a new plan could be approved.

There was no mention of retaining specific funding from section 94 contributions for parking in Cabramatta.

In a win for residents, before going through, the motion was altered to include Cabramatta after extensive debate.

Councillor Thang Ngo told the council funding for parking in Cabramatta should be included in the plan.

"It's no secret that there is a serious lack of car parking in Cabramatta,'' Cr Ngo told the council.

"We don't need more car parking in Fairfield as desperately as we do in Cabramatta.''

Under the original recommendation, until a new section 94 plan was developed, funding for car parking in Cabramatta would only come from section 94A contributions.

Cr Thang Ngo said section 94A contributions provided less money because of the areas they were collected from.

Section 94 and section 94A contributions are collected from developers.

The move to repeal the plan comes as most projects included in the plan have been completed.

Councillors will now attend a briefing session on the parking issues before making any further decisions.

Fairfield Council did not respond to a request for comment before the Fairfield Advance's deadline yesterday.