THE ACT government has been asked to “act fast” to fix the parking crisis at the Kippax Group Centre in a petition presented to the Assembly today (November 30).

Liberal member for Ginninderra, Elizabeth Kikkert, presented the petition saying a 2014 study quoted in the Kippax Master Plan revealed that parking demand was then approaching an unacceptable level.

“Consequently, the Master Plan states that ‘it is important, to identify ways to increase and improve car parking in the centre’ to deal with ‘future population growth’,” she said.

“That future growth is already here, but instead of progressing the long-delayed expansion of Kippax Fair, which includes 450 underground public parking bays, this Labor-Greens government made the situation worse two weeks ago by selling off 64 unrestricted parking spaces for development.

“This has reduced public parking in and along Hardwick Crescent by 12 per cent!”

Kikkert said The Master Plan clearly stated that redevelopment of existing car parks must “provide replacement public parking” and that “convenient and accessible car parking… should be retained as development and redevelopment occur” but the Labor-Greens had ignored its own Master Plan by providing no replacement parking.

“There are now days and times when it is virtually impossible to find parking at Kippax. Frustration amongst users of the centre is clear from the fact that this petition attracted 536 signatures over just three days,” she said.

“Traders fear that they may be forced out of business, especially since so many of them depend on the boost of Christmas-time shopping.

“They are calling on the government to do three simple things: one, resume public liability insurance on the closed car park before Christmas so that it can be reopened until construction actually starts; two, reconfigure remaining car parks as recommended by the Kippax Mast Plan to increase parking by up to 20 per cent and/or three, open a temporary car park as soon as possible.